The Time Capsule | Roy Marshall

A recent column included reference to George Plimpton and an April Fools’ hoax some rate as one of the best ever. The article prompted a call from an old friend, and we shared a laugh about events that had me telling a media outlet Plimpton was a bad influence on children.

Few of us have a background comparable to Plimpton’s. Born to upper-class parents in New York City in 1927, his family divided their time between a fashionable Manhattan apartment and a summer home on Long Island. George attended exclusive private schools. His age kept him out of the early stages of World War II, but he landed in Europe in 1945. The war ended shortly thereafter, and he was re-trained in E.O.D. For the next couple of years Plimpton neutralized explosive ordinance, detonating a lot of bombs, and loved it. Back in the states he became a fireworks fanatic, did a lot of partying, and graduated from Harvard.

Plimpton was glib, witty, athletic and a gifted writer. Co-editor of The Paris Revue, he wrote for other magazines as well. In the late 1950s he had an idea, knew people who helped him gain access, and began a series on what it was like to essentially step out of the bleachers and compete in professional sports. He pitched in a pre-season game at Yankee Stadium, sparred with Sugar Ray Robinson, quarterbacked in a Detroit Lions scrimmage. He wrote books and, as years passed, trained with the Boston Bruins, the Baltimore Colts and spent time with friends as flaky as Alex Karras and influential as Robert Kennedy. And always there were fireworks. He became so well known for them that Mayor John Lindsay, in a lighthearted moment, gave him the honorary title of “New York City Fireworks Commissioner.” Plimpton’s parties were extreme, and when fireworks debris rained down on neighbors he cited his title, claimed he’d given himself a permit. It was said that police, unless he actually maimed someone, weren’t going to interfere.

Meanwhile, I was muddling through the law enforcement academy and FBI’s hazard devices school. One summer, as July 4 approached, there were a number of fireworks injuries and a directive came from Des Moines—crack down on violators. It was an uphill swim. The statute was flimsy, an annual buying trip to Missouri ingrained in everyone from fire chiefs to preachers, and I was trying to get misdemeanor prosecutions out of county attorneys like the one in Glenwood, who was notorious for celebrating the 4th with a few sticks of dynamite.

From New York came a news account that Plimpton was working on a Roman candle that was 40 ½ inches in diameter, several feet tall and weighed 720 pounds. For someone in my line of work this was breathtaking. I was confiscating cherry bombs and bottle rockets. His, which he called “Fat Man” (after the atomic bomb that destroyed Nagasaki), was expected to soar 1,000 feet into the night sky, then detonate with a horrendous explosion and glorious starburst.

We’d done a couple of news releases on the danger of fireworks and local media followed up. A reporter with KMA asked for my reaction to the Plimpton story.

The honest answer was that I’d have given a week’s wages to see that mother fly. That wouldn’t do, so I went with one on the serious problem of commercial fireworks in the hands of unsupervised children, compounded by Plimpton spreading the dangerous idea of making big ones at home.

“Fat Man” didn’t launch. According to a later news story, it blew up on the ground, leaving a crater 35 feet wide and 10 feet deep. Working with the Grucci family of fireworks fame, Plimpton tried again. His second 720 pound device was fired at Cape Canaveral. This one was also a failure, although a news reporter said it broke a few hundred windows in nearby Titusville, Fla.

Plimpton’s book, “Fireworks,” tells more about his life and relationship with pyrotechnics. I’d be glad to loan my copy to anyone wanting to read it.

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.