Friday, September 5, 2014

September 5, 2014.

When These Hobbyists Get Together, Fireworks Ensue

The voice from the telescreen paused and added in a different and much graver tone: "You are warned to stand by for an important announcement at fifteen-thirty. Fifteen-thirty! This is news of the highest importance. Take care not to miss it. Fifteen-thirty!" The tinkling music struck up again.

MASON CITY, Iowa----Seth Berquist, a fifth-grader from Portage, Ind., has three main hobbies: Little League baseball, playing drums and building low-grade recreational explosives.

Winston’s heart stirred. That was the bulletin from the front; instinct told him that it was bad news that was coming. All day, with little spurts of excitement, the thought of a smashing defeat in Africa had been in and out of his mind. He seemed actually to see the Eurasian army swarming across the never-broken frontier and pouring down into the tip of Africa like a column of ants. Why had it not been possible to outflank them in some way? The outline of the West African coast stood out vividly in his mind. He picked up the white knight and moved it across the board. THERE was the proper spot. Even while he saw the black horde racing southward he saw another force, mysteriously assembled, suddenly planted in their rear, cutting their communications by land and sea. He felt that by willing it he was bringing that other force into existence. But it was necessary to act quickly. If they could get control of the whole of Africa, if they had airfields and submarine bases at the Cape, it would cut Oceania in two. It might mean anything: defeat, breakdown, the redivision of the world, the destruction of the Party! He drew a deep breath. An extraordinary medley of feeling----but it was not a medley, exactly; rather it was successive layers of feeling, in which one could not say which layer was undermost----struggled inside him.

At age 10, Seth is one of the youngest members of the Pyrotechnics Guild International, a group dedicated to the hobby of manufacturing fireworks.

The spasm passed. He put the white knight back in its place, but for the moment he could not settle down to serious study of the chess problem. His thoughts wandered again. Almost unconsciously he traced with his finger in the dust on the table:

2+2 = 5

During the guild's 42nd annual convention last month, Seth attended instructional sessions held by the PGI's youth group, the Junior Pyrotechnics Association. He is an expert at building rockets that fly hundreds of feet into the air, fueled by black gunpowder, and explode in bursts of color and flashing sparks, and "comets" that soar across the sky with glittering tails of flaming powdered metal.

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