His Job Is Still a Blast

From his ninth-floor room at the beachfront Holiday Inn, Roger Jobe has an ideal view of the Ventura County Fair’s nightly fireworks.

But the 52-year-old Bakersfield native seldom gets to watch the kaleidoscope of color light up the sky. He has to work.

Jobe is the chief pyrotechnist for the display. He directs the crew that ignites the fireworks, prompting virtually the entire city to stop and look skyward for eight minutes at precisely 9:30 p.m. on 12 consecutive nights.

He understands the attraction: “I love to see things blow up,” said the man whom his younger crew has affectionately dubbed “pop.”

“It doesn’t make any difference how old you are or how young you are, you always enjoy fireworks. The only difference between a little boy’s toys and a grown man’s toys is the cost.”

The cost of Jobe’s toys for a dozen days is $24,000. And unlike a lot of boys--grown or not--Jobe never resents sharing his toys with as many people as possible.

From the staging area at Surfers Point, Jobe takes quiet satisfaction from the distant oohs and aahs of the fair visitors as they react to the show.

And when the waitress at a downtown Ventura restaurant apologized for making him wait for a table one night, Jobe allowed himself a private smile when she explained that there had been plenty of available seats just minutes before, but that they filled up as soon as the fireworks ended.

“It’s an old-fashioned fair, it’s an old-fashioned fireworks show,” he said. “We take pride in what we do.”

The stocky, jovial Jobe, whose pock-marked legs bear the scars of dozens of small burns from his 26-year career setting off fireworks, takes pride in what he does. His shows explode at least 20 times a year as he travels throughout California, Nevada and Arizona.

He put on a dazzling $30,000 show in Las Vegas in April after demolition crews blew up the old Aladdin Hotel and Casino to make way for a new resort.

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On Independence Day, he does two displays in one night--at Edwards Air Force Base and Palmdale. But it is the Ventura shows he enjoys the most.

The reason, he sheepishly says, aware of how corny he sounds, is the people. Fair officials, county Fire Department staff, the accommodating hotel staff and locals in general combine to make his stay in the city pleasant.

They are the reason he has returned to the fair every year since fireworks became a nightly fair staple in 1991, he said.

That is true even on this Thursday night when the fire official overseeing his pyrotechnic display looks none too pleased that a reporter has shown up to document Jobe’s job.

For no matter how much Jobe likes to share the sight of the fireworks display with fair-going folks, he loves to share its sound and fury even more.

At ground zero, Jobe doesn’t have time to watch the show. But it is the almost tangible sensation of blasting off 209 explosive shells night after night that is the real attraction for him.

“It’s like a high,” he said, with an enthusiasm that is contagious. “If you’ve never been up close, you don’t know what it’s like . . . . It’s difficult to put into words.”

Indeed, standing next to the fireworks shells as they leave the battery of plastic “guns” braced on the sand, you don’t watch the show as much as feel it.

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When a shell blasts from the guns as much as 500 feet into the night sky with a resonant “whump,” it’s possible to feel the shock wave of force that is produced 20 to 30 feet away.

“It’s all about feeling,” said Jobe’s fellow pyrotechnist, Stern Ingham, after the show. “It’s all about getting that thing in your chest.”

Ingham and Jobe are especially looking forward to getting that thing in their chests Sunday, when the crowd on the fair’s final night is treated to the biggest fireworks show of the event.

“The finale alone will have as many shells as we fire in the body of this show,” he said Thursday. “It will be a good one to see.”

Veteran fireworks watchers contend the show is different every night. Not so, Jobe said. Night after night it is identical shell for shell, he maintains, although the angle of the guns and other critical elements of the show’s set-up can vary.

But the last night, well, that’s a lot different.

Jobe doesn’t want to disclose how he manages to save the best show for last--his employer, Pennsylvania-based Zambelli Internationale Fireworks gets paid the same flat $2,000 a night--but it is a form of insurance that ensures he will be invited back next year.

As he closes in on a decade of being the maestro behind the fair fireworks, Jobe’s strategy must be working. Still, he insists he is doing only his “little part” to make the fair a success.

Fairgrounds General Manager Michael Paluszak knows better.

“They are the high point of the show,” he said.

And for Ventura County residents who love fireworks as much as Jobe does, the higher, the louder, the more spectacular the better.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Today at the Fair

Here’s a look at what’s happening at the Ventura County Fair today:

* Seaside Park opens 11 a.m.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15

11:00: Seaside Park Opens

All Day: 19th Annual Chili Cook-off Porker Flats

All Day: Beef Day Agriculture

All Day: Carriage, Draft & Friesian Horse Show Morgan Arena

11 a.m.-6 p.m.: Turtle & Tortoise Show Fishes & Friends

11 a.m.: 4-H & FFA Livestock Showmanship Clark Pavilion

11 a.m.: Draft Horse Team Pull Competition Morgan Arena

11 a.m.: Sweet Country (Country music) Chili Cook-off Area

11 a.m.: Jewels of the Nile Pepsi Community (Middle Eastern dance) Stage

11 a.m.-5 p.m.: Ventura County Astronomical Society: Gems & Minerals Comet Making

11 a.m.-10 p.m.: Gary Baugh: Flint Knapping Gems & Minerals

11 a.m.-3 p.m.: Kay Hara: Wire Wrapping Gems & Minerals

11:30 a.m.: Special Effects Makeup by Stevens Youth Expo Studios

11:30 a.m.: Alphabet Soup Puppeteers Children’s Dell

11:30 a.m.: Shanachie (Irish folk music) Star Stage

11:30 a.m.: Too Too Tomato Strolling

11:30 a.m.: Duke & Dolly Dolphin Strolling

Noon: Chili Cook-off cooking begins Porker Flats

Noon: Steven Lord (guitarist-vocalist) Agriculture

Noon: VIP Lemon Pie Contest Creative Living

Noon: Debra Mills: Composting for Kids Uncle Leo’s Barn

12:30 p.m.: Rainbow Magic Show Children’s Dell

12:30 p.m.: Ta Da Dancers Pepsi Community Stage

12:30 p.m.: Gene West’s Wonderful Working Toys Youth Expo in Wood

12:30-6 p.m.: Turtle & Tortoise Show Fishes & Friends

1 p.m.: California State Championship Youth Expo Academic Rodeo

1 p.m.: Shanachie (Irish folk music) Star Stage

1-3 p.m.: Ventura Cattlemen’s Assn. beef tasting Agriculture

1 p.m.: Shaving Cream Hat Contest Pepsi Community (Junior Fair Board) Stage

1:30 p.m.: Alphabet Soup Puppeteers Children’s Dell

1:30 p.m.: Steven Lord (guitarist-vocalist) Agriculture

1:30-3 p.m.: Kay Hara: Wire Wrapping Gems & Minerals

2 p.m.: Flying U PRCA Rodeo Grandstand Arena

2 p.m.: Shanachie (Irish folk music) Star Stage

2 p.m.: Balloonacy Strolling

2 p.m.: Mime Mark Wenzel Strolling

2-10 p.m.: Cheri Scarbrough: Handmade Beads Gems & Minerals

2-7 p.m.: Lorraine Mitchell: Bead Stringing Gems & Minerals

2:30 p.m.: Gold Coast Gymnastics Pepsi Community Stage

2:30 p.m.: Rainbow Magic Show Children’s Dell

2:30 p.m.: Story Time Uncle Leo’s Barn

3 p.m.: Barn Talk Uncle Leo’s Barn

3-5 p.m: Ventura County Astronomical Society: Gems & Minerals Comet Making

3-5 p.m.: Chili Cook-off continues Porker Flats

3:30 p.m.: Arm Wrestling Registration Pepsi Community Stage

3:30 p.m.: Too Too Tomato Children’s Dell

3:30 p.m.: Special Effects Makeup by Stevens Youth Expo Studios

4 p.m.: WPAA Arm Wrestling Contest Pepsi Community Stage

4-10 p.m.: Gary Baugh: Flint Knapping Gems & Minerals

4:30 p.m.: Alphabet Soup Puppeteers Children’s Dell

4:30 p.m.: Horse Show Morgan Arena

5 p.m.: Cow Chip Contest (Jr. Fair Board) Grandstand Arena

5:30 p.m.: Rainbow Magic Show Children’s Dell

5:30 p.m.: Becky’s Dancers Pepsi Community Stage

6 p.m.: Ventura County Swing Dancers Pepsi Community Stage

6 p.m.: Special Effects Makeup by Stevens Youth Expo Studios

6 p.m.: Barn Talk: Ben McNary & Hank, Uncle Leo’s Barn his Racking Horse

6:30 p.m.: Steven Lord (guitarist-vocalist) Youth Expo

6:30-10 p.m.: Cheri Scarbrough: Handmade Beads Gems & Minerals

7 p.m.: The Flying U PRCA Rodeo Grandstand Arena

7 p.m.: Bill Haley’s Comets Star Stage featuring Al Rappa

7:30 p.m.: Shameless (top 40 music) Pepsi Community Stage

7:30-10 p.m.: Gary Baugh: Flint Knapping Gems & Minerals

9 p.m.: Bill Haley’s Comets Star Stage featuring Al Rappa

9:30 p.m.: Fireworks

10 p.m.: Exhibit Buildings close

11 p.m.: Commercial Building closes