Fireworks

It's actually shortly after midnight -- the 4th of July has 23-1/2 hours to go before it ends, at least on the East Coast of the U.S. Earlier this evening, but under the cover of darkness that shields thieves, miscreants and chicken****s, some kids (regardless of age) were outside my window (which faces a wildlife sanctuary) setting off fireworks. Not the pretty kind. The loud kind. The jolting, nerve-wracking, angering kind. My least favorite kind, especially in this day of any explosives making some of us -- me, certainly -- skittish and nervous. Reading CNN online (I can't get the videos there to work and I'm a pretty good techie) and seeing the stats of suicide bombers diminishes my already nearly nil fondness for fireworks other than the awesome kind that Macy's puts on at a safe distance every year in the East or Hudson River.

Driving around my little town today (I actually went to the gym, which necessitated my driving through our two-block "historic" downtown), I saw American flags clumped together, probably 20 of them, around our city sign and single ones poking out from several houses that normally are unadorned. My dad used to hang out the flag on sporadic holidays and I used to think it was geeky and old-fashioned and loser-ish of him. He served in WWII (memorized the eye chart so he'd get in when he normally wouldn't qualify) and always felt patriotic, though he only demonstrated it that visibly a few times a year. Now I know what he meant -- I still have a "United We Stand - 9-11-01" sticker in the rear left window of my car that I got a few days after 9/11.

The neighbors on our block (and many blocks around the country) on the 4th of July used to break out the sparklers and hand lit ones to us kids, and we'd twirl them in circles and infinity curves and delight in the light trails. Fireworks were legal then and little temporary stands would dot the major roads in Littleton, Colorado, where I spent much of my youth. Every year there were stories of some kid in the area (though never on my block) getting a hand blown off or an eye put out by an exploding device gone wrong, and it never appealed to me to mess with the damn things. That was an innocent time and I think I even felt that way then. I miss that.

I probably won't go see the lavish Macy's fireworks display this year now that I don't live "in the city" (Manhattan) anymore and it would eat up a day to take the train in, navigate to a good watching place, wait and wait and wait (standing, unless you have friends in high places) for the show and then impatiently inch along in the mass of bodies moving as one giant quivering blob away from the river, get back to Penn Station (along with a zillion other people, including drunks and whiny and screaming kids) and muscle into a jammed train to get back. Sounds like fun, huh?

What I like best about this July 4th is that so many people across the country will be doing somewhat the same thing on the same day, i.e., putting out the flag, barbecuing, watching the fireworks and, just for a moment, at least, feeling pride and gratitude for being a "free" (don't get me started on that, post-9/11) American. It is a unifying moment for a very ununified nation.