"Joe" wrote
Our favorite was buying rubbers in the bathroom at the diner, un
hooking the gas space heater, filling the rubber.....

Billy's house backed up on a 20'x20' concrete flood control creek that always
had a few inches of water in it. His dad, a machinist, had brought home a box
of magnesium 'chips' (long curls) he lit as sparklers. One night Billy and
another kid accidentally got the box burning so they tossed it into the creek.
It went off like a giant flash bulb, lighting the overcast sky for miles around.
Authorities thought "A-Bomb" and were not amused.