Remembering the 4th

When I was a kid growing up in the Highlands Neighborhood of East Lynn, Massachusetts during the 50's and 60's, the 4th of July was a huge and active celebration.
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All of the kids in the neighborhood would collect any junk that anybody had and haul it down to the Cook Street Playground. There were four distinct neighborhood groups of kids. We didn't call them gangs, but they probably had the trappings of this from a sociological viewpoint.
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The four groups were the kids from Wilson St., Hamilton Ave., Beacon Hill Ave., and Allen Ave.
Collectively, we were known as the kids from Cook St. Playground. as opposed to the kids from High Rock Street, Jefferson Street and the Meadow.
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Cook Street was the rival of High Rock, which had it's own Bonfire... that I never attended.
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On the 4th of July, the Cook Street playground was piled high with about a 30' wide by 15' high pile of combustable junk, with a dummy propped up on a broomstick at the top of the heap. Firecrackers, cherry bombs, barrell bomps and sparklers were exploding everywhere.
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Around 8:30 or 9:00 pm, one of the leaders of the neighborhood, usually the oldest and toughest kid, would grab a gas can, douse the pile and set the whole thing into a blazing bonfire.
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I can still see the huge flames and the sparks rising high in the night sky with all of the neighborhood - young and old - standing around cheering and stuff.
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Then the fire trucks would arrive. Everybody would boo while the bonfire was doused with high power, heavy canvas fire hoses. We would all wait until the firemen left, then the gas would come out the the whole thing would be started again. It was organized mayhem, but it seemed that everyone knew how the whole thing would come off, and there was never any trouble.
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In bed that night, I would envision that I was in the war, with the sounds of explosions still going off all night.
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I can't imagine a neighborhood bonfire going on in Marblehead.
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A pretty good memory.