Patriots like fireworks
The Fourth of July has always been my favorite holiday. My formative years were in Omaha, Nebraska. Every July 4, a local TV channel showed the movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and I have since never grown tired of watching it. My second grade teacher spoke so enthusiastically about George Washington and the Revolution, one might have thought she had known him. I had a dream that George and I were both 7 and he lived next door. When I awoke, I ran to the window and was truly surprised and disappointed. From those experiences the die was cast. I was a patriot who, by no surprise, liked fireworks.
In anyone’s language, fireworks means celebration. The professional fireworks shows at drive-in movies or municipal parks were spectacular events, with the rockets ascending as they shed sparks, then exploded into multicolored Chrysanthemums, audibly emitting either muffled pops or startling booms. They would start off shooting singles, then progress to firing in volley. The smell of burnt black powder would drift in usually after the third salvo. Beautiful.
Shooting off fireworks yourself is a more personal experience, and handling fireworks is essentially playing with fire. They were the first objects, after one’s first BB gun, of the dire warnings about what they could do to fingers and eyes. The small Ladyfingers and Black Cats were dangerous enough. I had a Black Cat explode in my 9-year-old hand from a short fuse that put a small cut on my finger and thumb.
The full article is available in our e-Edition. Click here to subscribe.