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.