Fireworks

Tomorrow is the 4th of July.  It's a great American holiday - to some people, it's a reminder that we live in a great country, that we celebrate our democracy and freedom, and we remember the sacrifices made to preserve those gifts.  To some people, it's an opportunity to blow off work and drink a lot of beer.  Whatever your reasons, and even though we argue about a lot these days, there's one thing almost  everybody can agree on: we love our fireworks.

For kids, it's a thrill to run around with sparklers - I think it re-awakens our original quest for fire, plus you can threaten kids bigger than you are with burning their hair off.  And you can write stuff in the night air that stays long enough for your friends to figure out the word, but not long enough for your grandma to catch you.  Someone's whiny cousin usually hurts himself somehow, and a bunch of kids get the "It's all fun and games until someone loses and eye" speech, but then somebody else's Dad would bring out the snap caps and the black snakes and the bottle rockets and all was forgiven. Good times.

For teens and young adults, fireworks are pretty much a metaphor for life.  That's what they're all looking for, one way or another.  When West Side Story's Sharks and the Jets sang about the rockets in their pockets, they weren't talking about the bottle rockets that only last for three seconds.   At least I don't think so - there wasn't a character named Cialis, was there?

As adults, fireworks are a chance to share visible joy with the rest of our community.  We become more tempered in our excitement, because we have to be conscious of safety concerns, but we can still oooh and ahhh, and sing along with Ray Charles when he sings America the Beautiful. Where I live, we have fireworks all over the place - if you go high enough up a mountain, you can see half a dozen different shows from the same spot.  A friend once advised it was like the best part of an acid trip.

But the big Kahuna of fireworks here is on the river downtown.  Huge barges are stocked with spectacular explosives in every color of the rainbow - it gets more complex and breathtaking every year.  The luckiest of us watch it from one of the hundreds of boats anchored as close as they'll let us.  There, with our radios all tuned to the station that choreographs the music, with our kids and our friends and our beer, we get the best of it all.

What's your favorite fireworks memory?

Comments

[Kerry, the Martial Tart]

Fireworks were pretty much verbotten when I was a kid growing up in tinder-dry California, although I do have a single memory of the sparklers and snakes as a kid. As an adult, I'm a sucker for the big, loud, over-the-top spectacles. One of the most memorable was the display on the fairgrounds in Lubbock, Texas, shared with friends. From where we were sitting, each individual firework (is that the correct singular?) seemed to head straight for us, bursting barely over our heads.

Nowadays my firework watching happens in May, when my city puts on its annual fair/carnival in the park about a mile down the road. No hassling with traffic: we just stroll out into the parking lot of our townhouse complex, sit on the curb, and watch them roar. And every time, we reminisce about our first visit here, when we had come to look for a place to live, knowing nothing about the area and having no one to turn to for advice. In our hotel room after having spent a whole day driving around looking at townhouses and apartments, and beginning to despair over ever finding a decent place to rent that would let us keep our cats (the kid wasn't a problem), we heard a familiar boom. For a while we forgot our woes as we watched the display out our window and wondered if, just maybe, the city had decided to welcome us in style.

[annette]

My favorite fireworks memory is seeing the nightly fireworks show at the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans. The Fourth of Joly show was the best. The fireworks were launched from a barge on the Mississippi River. We would hang out at one of the many Fair restuarants/bars along what is now the RIverwalk.
Today, my daughter and I put our pjs on early and open the curtains and watch from my bedroom window. We can see the parish frieworks show on the river. No heat, mosquitoes or crowds. It's fun.

[Maryann]

When I was young (oh so long ago), the 4th was an all-day celebration. Never mind that we were a Chicago suburb; for one day my hometown was small town America. Flags came out on porches, the parade moseyed down the main drag, complete with color guard, pre-teen baton twirlers and every local band imaginable. Of course the whole thing began with the National Anthem (brought tears to my eyes then as it still does) and ended with the local police cars. But the cap of the day was the firework display at Memorial Park. If you were lucky, your family picnicked the afternoon away in prime viewing position. There was always a little 'show' beforehand...but the cheers began when the first starburst went up. No choreographed music, not modern laser bursts, just silence and ooohs and aaahs as the sky lit up. When it was all over, we packed up and walked home, tired and a little deaf from the booms and pops.
Where I live now, fireworks are held at the football stadium, and the parade seems shorter every year. So, I guess my favorite fireworks memory is every 4th of July in my childhood :o) Happy 4th everyone...for all its faults, this country is still the place I'd rather be :o)

[sarahS]

Every year they'd hold a fireworks display in the stadium at Liberty High. Not a particularly large stadium and, sure enough, some kid would get singed.
The best fireworks I ever saw were in Chicago over Lake Michigan. And it wasn't even Fourth of July. Spectacular.
I hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th - the WORST DRIVING DAY OF THE YEAR. So stay home or stay between the lines. Eek.

[Laura]

I was able to go to the Pops concert and watch the fireworks on the Charles River in Boston one year. That was pretty neat. Our town, although small, has a pretty big 4th of July fireworks show, but this year it's postponed (until Labor Day) because the park where they usually hold it is under water.

So I'll probably watch the Boston and/or Philly ones on TV, bobbing my head in time to the 1812 Overture.

[Cinema Dave]

South Florida has underrated fireworks.
From my parent's 4th floor condo, one can see Palm Beach, Broward and Dade County fireworks!

Yea, I miss the music of the big band, but we can put on network televison shows and get the same vibe.

BTW - Lee Greenwood will be visiting Deerfield Beach for the 3rd Fourth of July, just proud to be an American, at least I know I am free!

[Kathy Sweeney]

I grew up in Indiana, PA - a small town northeast of Pittsburgh. We always had a big parade, then it seemed like every neighborhood had a big picnic, then we'd all go to the fair grounds to watch the fireworks. When we were little, we'd sit on the top of the family station wagon - had those wood panels on the side and everything. When we were older, we'd head off with our friends. No one worried about kids getting snatched or people getting robbed. It never even occurred to us.

Cinema Dave - love Lee Greenwood, and -

One of my best more recent fireworks memories was in Miami - we were walking on the beach and suddenly there was a huge fireworks show - fantastic! Then, to top it off, we got to see the Temptations and the Four Tops in an outdoor show - turns out they were having a big regatta or something, but we just happened upon it.

Like Maryann, I still cry when I hear those songs.

Laura - I spent one 4th with the Boston Pops due to a broken foot. It was great - this year's show looks great too. Maybe I'll DVR it!

[Laura]

I just love Keith Lockhart.

[Anonymous]

My favorite fireworks are the ones we sneak across state lines and set off in secret while the rest of the town is watching the official ones. We can see those from the backyard while we set off our own.

[Maryann]

Laura...me too! I may have to Tivo or something as well. Then I have to ship my husband off somewhere and turn up the sound :o) The cat thinks I'm nuts.

[Andi]

um do you count "I have none" as a comment? I hate fireworks. In large part it's due to a connecticut childhood where the holiday involved huge mosquitos, intense humidity and loud noises and crowds of strangers - even when i could walk, that last was not my idea of fun. i associate fireworks with discomfort. though I do recall one year at Westercon - a science fiction convention - where we all were gathered in a stairwell - glassed in -where we could see the display nearby. Everyone would "ooooh" and "ahhhhh" til I opointed out "gosh folks, this is a bunch of well-read,intellectual smart people with huge vocabularies. Can't we do better than that?" And the next one went up and everyone went "oooooh" and "ahhhhhh". Go figure.
(forgive typos etc - having problems typing this week - doing an ee cummings thing)

[Mary Alice Gorman]

When our kids were very young we went to the first few W VA Arts and Crafts Fairs in Ripley W VA. We would stay at a now closed old hotel in Sistersville where the locals held a carnival behind it. The people watching was pretty incredible but I'm the sucker for the color game. At the close they set off fireworks in a ballfield and you could lay on the ground and let the ashes fall where they may. Quite a thrill for folks from a state where the saftey rules ruined the smell and feel of fireworks.
Support your Independence...buy your books from an independent bookseller at www.mysterylovers.com

[SusanCo]

The one Fourth of July that I will never forget, is the one in Aspen Colorado around 1965. The mayor was a hippie, also the newspaper editor , and some said that the sheriff was seen growing pot outside the police station. No wait, that was the seeds my best friend and I planted there that summer! On that Fourth the hippie population decided to do it up royal. First were the speeches and music, then came the fireworks. Lots of Ohhhhs and Ahhhhsss. Then the smartest of the bunch decided that wasnt enough. Not enough Bang. Not enough sparks. So they thought what would be better then dynamite? You cant get louder then that? Now what to blow up, that would make a perfect spectacle for all the senses? What would tell everyone what they thought of the government, the city, and THE MAN. They blew up the garbage trucks, of course. The rain of wonderful smelling trash , the methane gas from the garbage giving great sparks,the people running for their lives. AHHHHH the memory of it all. Wish you could have been there dontcha? SusanCo

[Laura]

Based on what I wrote yesterday, I just had to post this picture I saw in the Philadelphia Inquirer this morning of Keith Lockhart and Steven Tyler during a sound check. (scroll down)

http://www.aero247.com/news/

Gotta love it.

[Kathy Sweeney]

Laura - Rockapella is performing too - earlier in the show. If it doesn't stop raining here, I'll be watching Boston!

[Kimmy]

We've had so much rain that our fireworks were re-scheduled for Labor Day - bummer.