Monday, July 4, 2011

Fireworks In My Mind

There are no fireworks in Fair Play on the Fourth of July for fear of fire (how's that for alliteration?).  I have to go back in memory if I want to see those diamonds in the sky.  When I was a kid, some years we'd go to the monster fireworks displays at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena where the boom of the cannon bombs would reverberate in my chest.  Sometimes the whole family would picnic with many other spectators at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, watching the display from blankets spread on the grass, joining the crowd with those irrepressible oohs and aahs.  I liked it when we stayed home and I could set a match to those black pellets that would rise up and writhe in coils like snakes in the driveway; those were the only thing I was allowed to light myself.  Next would come the sparklers in the gathering dusk.  In those days, sparklers were formed on wires and, yes, even sparklers could be dangerous.  I, myself, stepped on a hot wire in the dark with bare feet, but I think they were more beautiful and certainly lasted longer than the puny, safer sticks of today.  It was hard waiting for dark when my dad would light the fountains of Vesuvius and spinning "flowers" in the street in front of our house.  My son Larry and I spent a memorable Fourth on the beach at Waikiki, sitting with our backs against the sea wall, watching the fireworks from the big hotels shoot out over the ocean to be reflected in the water.  In West Sacramento, neighbors with children would pool their fireworks and come out to the cul-de-sac to put on a show for the kids.  Steve and I would climb up on our roof where we not only had the best seats for the local display, we could see the big shows put on in Sacramento, Davis, Dixon, and all the way down in Elk Grove; it seemed the surrounding horizon was filled with fireworks just for us...and we didn't have to buy tickets or find a parking place.  I won't really miss seeing fireworks in the sky tonight...I can see them in my mind.

2 comments:

Kathryn said...

Ahhh...the snakes...I can still smell them in my mind...and of course we could see the black marks on our cement for a long time after the 4th! I wonder if our friends, whose youngest is 30, still have a gang at their end of the cul-de-sac! They live in Costa Mesa, and I've been told it is one of the few towns in Southern California - or maybe just Orange County, where one can still buy fireworks from the gaudy, crowded temporary stands that organizations set up in order to fund their favorite charities. Didn't we have the BEST childhoods??? And your Hawaii 4th sounds wonderful! Hope I can find some in the sky tonight!!

Cally Kid said...

!BOOOOM..BANG! "Oohhhuuhhhhhh, Aaahhhhhhh! But wait..there's more?" Hanging out in Library Park during ReUnion are some of my most memorable fireworks viewing. From the 4th floor of my hotel I could a couple of displays across the Springs area. "Oh and Ah" were echoing in my mind.