THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 31, 1994 TAG: 9412310318
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
Now there's proof the South is noisier in welcoming the new year than isthe rest of the country.
In a poll for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 57 percent of Southerners say they set off fireworks, or fire a gun or do both to salute the new year.
The poll by a research institute at the University of North Carolina shows that in the rest of the nation, two-thirds of the population doesn't resort to gunpowder to welcome the new year.
But Southerners vastly prefer fireworks to guns. Fourteen percent shoot both; 41 percent, just fireworks; 2 percent, just guns.
The poll also shows that Southerners are not as prone to go out and party for the new year. Two-thirds of them either celebrate at home or skip it altogether. Only 29 percent go out to celebrate.
The poll doesn't mention that before World War II, we greeted even Christmas explosively.
The deeper in the South, the louder. In the rural Georgia of my childhood, or on Virginia farms, it was quite emphatic.
If the three wise men had been Southerners, they'd have given the baby in the manger some firecrackers to alert the shepherds tending their flocks by night, and an armload of skyrockets to join the stars that sang together in the heavens.
What awoke you Christmas, 'fore daylight, was not carolers singing, ``God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,'' it was WHAM BLAMMEDY BLAM as if the merry gentlemen were in a shootout.
This martial air arose from the rural land where many hunted to eat, often amid worn breastworks where men had died.
In a call to arms, Southerners rush to serve in numbers out of proportion to their region's smaller population.
The outbreak for the New Year is an exuberant welcome and for the old, a parting kick in the seat.
As the 20th century matured, parents began to warn children of the dangers of fireworks. Our fathers set them off while children wondered when they would have the fun of warning others.
Once we held bright sparklers while my father and his friend Harold got set to fire a super rocket.
Leaning the rocket's stick in an empty milk bottle, Harold stooped and lit fuse and, backing away, said, ``Now watch this.''
At that, the skyrocket came rushing, hissing, straight at Harold who turned and ran all-out, ducking and dodging around the yard; but the rocket, as if with a homing device, stayed right behind him.
At last, he flung himself on the grass. The rocket swooshed about three feet above him and came ``bang,'' with a shower of sparks, against the trunk of an oak tree.
Arising after a moment of silence, brushing himself off, Harold said to us: ``See there. What did I tell you?''
It was as persuasive a demonstration of the risk of fooling with fireworks as you could expect. But it sure was exciting. by CNB