Fireworks are the most temporal of our celebrations. After the fact you’re happy their gone. You can think mean things of the neighbors still lighting them after the calendar suggests they should be stowed for New Year’s Eve.
Never mind that the Declaration of Independence was first published in a newspaper on July 6th. We forget it was shipped to the Brits and read publicly on the 8th. Few recall that Gen. George Washington had it read to his soldiers on the 9th and that it was August before the signings began. The vote was the 4th and that’s when the fireworks retailers really need help getting their revenue in order, so that’s when we buy and light the things.
Fireworks on the 6th of July are just right out. There’s just no ring to that whatsoever.
You can light fireworks early, that’s festive. Unless your neighbors are the type that call the cops. Police officers hate the “shots fired” call which is really Old Lady Eveready mistaking your firecrackers for a revolver. Some cities burn through their pyrotechnic budget before the grand day. Opelika is one of those towns. Their “Celebration of Freedom” was tonight.
They have food and music and inflatables and face painting. The local parachute group leaps into the sky to bring the American flag to the city elders. Kids have scattered out decorated paper plates beforehand, hoping the guy with the flag lands on theirs so they win a prize.
People are sprawled everywhere in the beds of pickups and in lawn chairs. Two teenagers are making out and some old people nearby really wish they’d just stop. People see each other outside of work or school or church, maybe for the first time in a long time. Kids are playing tag over here and blowing bubbles over there. The entire scene is almost perfect and lovely. The only thing missing is John Mellencamp.
Promptly at 9 p.m. organizers throw thousands of dollars into the night sky and hope that, while it doesn’t reach escape velocity, it somehow catches fire and burns in many colors and shapes and sounds. More often than not that is precisely what happens. Here’s tonight’s finale:
For the video I shot last year I wrote “why not make it a several day celebration? A birth of a nation should merit that.”
Why not, indeed.
God bless America on this Third of July.
