Category Archives: Texana

Found a spent bottle rocket in the backyard this morning, the residue of some New Year’s celebrant’s evening, no doubt. Things still too wet from the other day’s rain for it to have started a fire. Reminds me of the time in youth when I almost put a child in the hospital with one as it zipped past his face. Lots of laughs all around. Wouldn’t have been so funny if it hit him. Quite illegal in the city limits, of course, but… They’re called bottle rockets because way back in the mists of time, you would set the stick end in a longneck beer or soda bottle and light the fuse. Longneck bottles being not so common anymore, this one says on the label "place in trough or iron pipe at 75 (degree) angel (sic)." It also says "rocket travels at high speed and can travel long distances," so there’s no way to know where it came from. Today, of course, bottle rocket is the name of a band, a movie, and a homemade technology involving using plastic bottles to make rockets. There’s even a Youtube video of someone launching 45,000 of them. But when I hear the name, I always think of the older, one-at-a-time version. My own bottle rocket days ended long ago, so it’s nice to have a reminder.