I like the fourth of May, "May the Fourth be with you!" It always sounds like Obi-Wan Kenobi with a lisp. This Fourth of July is just going to be hot. There will be none of the festive gatherings and barbecues. Fireworks have been banned up here for years, so I won't be missing them. As I so often do when the present fails me, I revert to the past.
When I was a kid, before it was dark enough for fireworks on the Fourth of July, I was permitted to light off "snakes," small black pellets that would rise up and coil in a column of ashes. I thought they were magical. Next came sparklers. Not the wimpy kind on sticks today. Our sparklers were on wires and lasted forever, or at least long enough to dance about and "write" your name in the air. Not as safety conscience as we are today, I well remember stepping barefoot on a hot discarded wire. That's how we learned.
As a teenager, my family joined with my sister's for an all-day picnic at a park in Hollydale. My grandfather, Papa, was still alive then. He was a crusty old dude who had mellowed with time and kept an eye on my nieces and nephews while my mother, sister, and I played a marathon, nonstop game of double solitaire. I was picked up later by a date who took me to the Coliseum in Pasadena for a big aerial fireworks show.
My best Fourth of July ever was sitting on Waikiki Beach with my son, drinking mai tais, feeling the breeze come off the ocean, and watching fireworks out over the bay.
Ah well. That was then, this is now.
Stay safe. Be well.
1 comment:
Oh I LOVED snakes...and the smell! Luckily I don't ever remember stepping on used sparklers. My one memory of a big fireworks show when I was a child was at big park in Arcadia. And I haven't lived there in 19 years, but Costa Mesa still sold backyard fireworks that you could shoot off in the street. I wonder if they still do. I think they were the only city left in Orange County that still did that. I sure hope my grandchildren get to enjoy snakes and sparklers one of these days.
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