Dyer is da bomb!

Any day now, I expect to see the most spectacular fireworks show of all time, which will be what happens when the town of Dyer explodes. I get this feeling every year, but it hasn't happened yet.

Dyer is a little town just on the Indiana side of the state line with Illinois, and because of taxes and the most idiotic law in all of America, 95% of the Dyer economy is based on the sale of gasoline, cigarettes and fireworks. The first mile and a half of US 30 from the state line into Indiana, which is the Dyer business area, you see a school, a couple of churches, five gas stations (three of which are Speedways), about a dozen places to buy cigarettes and another dozen to buy fireworks. Fortunately, there is also a hospital.

Lower taxes fuel the cigarette and gas sales from our neighbors in Illinois. The fireworks sales are seasonal (spring, summer and fall) and are due to a law which says you can buy any fireworks you want in Indiana as long as you promise to not blow them up here.

You'll be shocked to learn that law is not strictly enforced. If you had a cop on every corner, they still wouldn't be able to keep up. The only thing more surprising than that is that the fireworks industry contributes megatons of money to Indiana politicians so this stupidity can continue.

As a result of the spinelessness of our legislature, you can get anything from little firecrackers to thermonuclear devices in Dyer.

As you can probably tell, I'm not a big fan of the fireworks. The vast majority of the major explosives end up in the hands of kids who have no idea how to handle them. But, I'm just as offended by the wink-wink-nudge-nudge nature of the law. If we're going to let people buy the fireworks, we should let them shoot them off. If we're not going to let people shoot them off, then we shouldn't sell them.

I think they should be banned, even at the significant risk of turning Dyer into a ghost town, but either way, the Indiana legislature should make up its damn mind.