Tent City

Every June, sign of summer, we see this tent bubble up right past the bridge over the Meramec, where St. Louis County becomes Jeff County where it's legal to sell and buy fireworks. Eventually I get there. Open 24/7 until July 6, last night at 10 p.m. the parking lot hosted carloads of city families stocking up for the 4th. Their carefree fun however was spoiled by a police sobriety check not a mile ahead of said bridge. I'd never been in a sobriety check, and seeing the line of cops and their cars and cones I thought, "an accident so terrible they are telling everyone to make sure not to even look," but all they wanted was to see my license. "Goin' home?" the cop said. This is a question I am always happy to answer in the affirmative.

P.S. I wanted a reward or prize for being stopped and found sober. Hey, tin stars: How about a gross of bottle rockets....?

On my last trip across Missouri I saw that these tents -- not as big as this one -- go up alongside highways all over the state. Brick-and-mortar fireworks stores are few and year-round some of them sell other things like Stuckey's confections and furniture.