4th of July

 Happy Independence Day everyone!  (At least for those of you who are Americans).  Today looks like a beautiful day , and hopefully the sky will be clear :bademoticon: for fireworks tonight.  I'm hoping  dad will take me to see The BFG today.  That would make this a perfect day .  I haven't seen Independence Day 2: Resurgence yet, though my dad and brother did, and they said it was good.  It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since the last one came out .  The 90s still feel like the decade of yesteryear to me, but I guess that's just because my childhood was around that time.  Oh well . 

At least today they have a good reason for shooting off fireworks .  For the past two nights, the people in my town just couldn't wait for the 4th to come about, so they decided, "I'm gonna shoot off fireworks now!"  So I kept hearing booms and bangs in the distance at night.  I appreciate their enthusiasm, but not their sense of timing.   

I'm actually kinda wishing I lived in an area that had spectacular fireworks displays .  Even if we could find a decent spot to watch any fireworks, I've actually never been to a truly spectacular show (save for that one time in Disneyworld back in '96).  The best we can get is a view of Washington D.C. on tv during that time.  When I was in my early teens, we lived right near an open field where people could go to watch the fireworks  in that particular town (it was one of several fireworks viewpoints).  So while it was easy for my family to just walk up to the north and cross the street there, our own street was often clogged with both cars and people carrying lawn furniture to come watch the show .  In some cases it wasn't so bad, so long as we didn't need to drive anywhere that evening.  One of my earliest memories of the 4th of July involved playing with sparklers  on our front porch.  Mom would show my brother and I how to "write" our names in the air with it.  Then when the sparkler got down to our fingers, we could drop it on the concrete porch and let it sputter out. 

Some states can unfortunately be very stingy about fireworks .  Like in parts of the Midwest, they won't let you use anything other than party poppers, fountains, and other minor, namby pamby little yard items.  You try shooting off bottle rockets , Piccolo Pete's (God I hate those horrible, shrieky things ), or firecrackers; the damned neighbors call the cops  on you, and you end up having to explain that you had to go all the way to another state 200 miles away to get any really fun fireworks to celebrate the holiday with.  That happened to my parents at least once when I was 10, and I fled  into the house when I saw the cop car.  Now grandpa  (on mom's side) really knew how to celebrate the 4th of July.  Once, he put a fiery pinwheel :bademoticon: on a tree outside his and grandma's house, and set it off while we were visiting.  It scared :bademoticon: the living daylights out of me.  I thought for sure it was gonna fly off the tree and burn us all alive.  (It didn't, but you know how it is when you're 4 or 5). 

There have been a few times when our holiday was canceled on account of bad weather.  Like thunderstorms  .  There were at least two occasions when we saw thunderstorms :bademoticon: threatening nearby during a fireworks show, and often you couldn't tell the thunder  from the booming fireworks.  In California, they have very different reasons for canceling fireworks shows.  Usually it's fear of wildfires  starting from the rockets (though I have yet to hear of a wildfire started that way).  Sadly, Independence Day falls during Wildfire Season there, and it's a much greater fear in the hot, dry southern part of CA.  At least with the coastal :bademoticon: towns, they will shoot off the fireworks  over the ocean, so nothing will set on fire from the falling ashes.  But if there's a will there's a way.