I have one rule as I take the Claremore/Catoosa exit northeast on Route 66: at the first fireworks stand I see—and I mean a stand; not a warehouse, not a store—I will pull off the road. I want to get a sense of what it’s like to run one of these homegrown seasonal businesses. Past the Hard Rock Casino and the Mazzio’s billboards and the Blue Whale, Tulsa's sprawl evens out: groves of oaks and hackberries wobble in the wind as I come down off the bridge spanning the Verdigris River.
Verdigris (pop. 5,256) appears, and past a Sonic and a Dollar General and a Casey’s whose gas pumps are all plastic-bagged, I see one: a bright yellow shack, covered by a blue tarp. I didn’t choose Ammo Hut Fireworks. It chose me.
Lisa Hughes smiles and greets me as I walk up. She’s been working this stand for fourteen years, she tells me. Until last year, there was no blue tarp. Back then, the sun simply poured down onto the bright yellow fireworks shack; one could be forgiven for thinking the sunlight dyed the wood that color. Now, this year, voila: blue tarp. Keeps the heat off.
By Oklahoma June standards, today’s heat is tame. The Weather app registers in the upper 80s, thanks to the grey down of cloud pushing across Green Country’s overhead blue. Underneath the tarp, it’s even cooler.
The political sentiment, however, is hot. “Trump Sparklers,” “Try It In A Small Town,” and “We Will Make America Safe Again” cakes (large clusters of fireworks which can be activated via a single wick) are all for sale here. Asked if they sold Biden fireworks during the Biden administration, Hughes laughs.
“No,” she says. “Nothing Biden.” The majority of her customers go for Trump, she tells me. Before the Trump presidency, she doesn’t remember a similar kind of personality dominating the firework racks; they were even selling Trump fireworks through the Biden years. If Biden fireworks even existed back then, she wasn’t aware of them.
“We’ve got Nature Boy,” she says, pointing to a Ric Flair (the WWE wrestler) themed cake, the only other personality-driven firework on the racks. Flair himself is a huge Trump supporter (despite writing himself in for President in the 2016 election); it’s Trump and his favorites in this fireworks stand.
I’m surprised when Hughes tells me that she goes for Trump too. Maybe that’s a little naive of me. Hughes has a kind smile and is retired from a 20-year career in Claremore Public Schools, in Special Ed and the front office.
When I ask her what she likes about running the fireworks stand, she mentions the kids first. I point out that she lights up when talking about them and her smile widens.
“Yeah, I love them. I watch them turn into teenagers! And they pull up and they’re so excited to see me. They’re like, ‘I’m so glad you’re back!’ Watching them grow is a lot of fun. It’s hard work, but it’s fun.”
Family helps. While we’re talking, Hughes’ daughter Tiffany comes up behind her and hugs her. “That’s my daughter,” she says, grasping Tiffany’s hand. “There’s my mom; that’s my sister. When I started, I worked with another lady. When she left, I recruited my family.”
Hughes doesn’t own the stand; it’s owned by another schoolteacher in Claremore, who uses this as his primary cash flow—presumably since teaching pays so badly. But here, she says, “I’m in charge.”
The days are long; they start at eight in the morning. Hughes cringes when she thinks about the Fourth. “We’ll have people lining up in the ditch,” she says, pointing to the ditch 30 feet away from the stand. “Verdigris people typically wait until the 4th, and then the entire town’ll be standing in front of us.”
The day ends when the people stop coming. “Sometimes it’s midnight; sometimes it’s two or three o’clock in the morning.” Then, since the 5th of July is a Saturday, they’ll be back at it at 8 in the morning.
“We won’t get much sleep,” she says. “It’s a blast.” Literally.
