On Living in a Firework
The 4th of July happened to occur last week and if you didn’t notice, you either live off the grid in a state of isolation so profound that Edward Michael “Bear” Grylls (yeah, until today I honestly thought “Bear” was his given name) would be impressed…or you live in a country where lighting off a small nation’s GDP worth of fireworks isn’t the norm. I’ve written about the 4th before, but more in the context of my disappointment with the state of America. Today, however, I wanna talk about something a little more fun, because we could all use a little more fun.
I grew up in Los Angeles, where fireworks are absolutely, completely, 100% ILLEGAL. You can’t walk down the street in June or July and not see a plethora of “NO FIREWORKS” signs. This is for good reason, though! For most of my life, Southern California has been in one stage of a drought or another and nothing starts a fire better than a manmade explosion. Unfortunately, everyone in LA is illiterate and lives their life by this meme:
Living in a central part of LA, the warnings of the 4th of July’s approach start appearing around June 16th. A random “pop” here and there, a dash of momentary color in the sky, an earth shattering, window rattling, car alarm triggering, explosion in the middle of the night…you know, normal stuff. It’s honestly a bit unnerving that you have no idea when the psycho with no self-restraint will spend an evening staring at their pile of M80s and decide, “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to launch ONE of these suckers at 3 am…”
When the day arrives, however, it’s kind of magical. We had a few friends over to our apartment on the night of the 4th and honestly, I was a little worried. I’d told them all that our neighborhood had a bit of an obsession with fireworks and our second-floor corner apartment would be a great place to watch them.
Like any self-respecting anxiety-haver, I spent the time from the moment I typed those words, until 8 pm on the 4th, incredibly anxious that for some reason, the entire city of LA would take the year off from fireworks.
Of course, I was wrong! The fireworks were as insane as ever! They lit up the night sky in every direction with greens and reds and golds. They exploded with whistles and pops and bangs and echoing booms. They delighted us, amazed us, entertained us, and, after a while, annoyed us.
Fireworks are one of the coolest, most joyful things we’ve created as humans. They take something dangerous, something that can be, and usually is, used for violence and destruction, and turns it into something wonderous that reminds us how beautiful life can be. Sure, if you’re a dog, or a veteran, or someone who gets easily overstimulated (like me! The first year we lived in this neighborhood, I had a full-on panic attack and ended up sitting on the floor in the corner of our kitchen with my hands over my ears) they can be WAY too much. But, if you’re in the right headspace for them, and the right distance away, fireworks can be pretty fucking cool, man.
What’s your experience with fireworks? Love them? Hate them? Consider them wizardry?
I grew up loving the big shows, and I enjoyed the years in my childhood where you could actually legally buy and set off smaller fireworks in parts of L.A. That is all over for me now, knowing how many people and pets are very disturbed by them. Plus the air quality suffers. Still, we watched in awe the show at the local high school a quarter mile away. But all things considered I'm ready for the growing trend of drone shows.
When I was a kid Washington Park in Milwaukee had great 4th of July Fireworks and we looked forward to them for months. But one year some customer or supplier at my dad's restaurant gave him tickets to stock car races way the hell in the western suburbs. He thought it would be a treat for my brother and me and a rare father/sons bonding experience. Instead, he found himself stuck with two miserable brats frying in the sun, getting headaches from the noise of the engines and nausea from the smell of gas and burnt tires. After about twenty laps of watching us sitting with our fingers in our ears he gave up and got us home in time to get to the Park with our cousins for the fireworks. It was that day he finally realized neither of his kids would ever compete in Nascar.