The most memorable weekend activity was the time my father decided to make his own fireworks.
Bear in mind that my father is a graphic artist; while he enjoys activities like hunting and Civil War reenactments, he is not to be mistaken for a pyrotechnic.

Dad grabbed himself a toilet paper tube, closed one end with electrical tape, and proceeded to fill the cylinder with black powder, along with a few other unnamed ingredients that he claimed would 'sparkle'.

After closing the other end, he attached a fuse, and we took a walk into the woods.

Dad lit the fuse on a grassy hill next to a creek, and ran back beside me. "Watch this!" he declared, his face exultant.

Did I mention we'd had no rain for at least a week? That this was midsummer, and it was _very_ hot, and _very_ dry?

The toilet paper did not explode as advertised. It instead ejected a six foot tongue of flame that immediately lit the surrounding dry grass and twigs with gusto.

I will never, so long as I live, forget the site of my father, knee deep in the creek, slapping water out at what looked to be a football field afire, telling me to 'go get a bucket.'

I instead got the fire department, and Dad got a fine.

Luckily, no one was hurt in the making of this memory.