I don't care who you are, fireworks are wicked cool.My affinity for these booming bursts of color and light is deep-rooted, a childhood of dragging lawnchairs and coolers and sweatshirts just in case, setting up shop elbow to elbow in some city park, rocky roadside, a random strip of waterfront. Playing cards and swatting bugs and scanning the crowds for something interesting to talk about. Indulging in: sparklers, glowsticks, cotton candy if we could find it. Killing time until the sun shifts, at last, and then startled by that first sizzling crack, slumping down in our seats, legs stretched and eyes to the sky and losing ourselves, because suddenly there's nothing else but the eruption of light and color just overhead.
The thing about fireworks that's doubly fantastic is accessibility; it doesn't matter, really, where you are on Independence Day. Detroit, Miami, St. Louis. Tavares, Florida or Alton, Illinois. Boyne City, Michigan. Whether the population is in the hundred-thousands or just around a handful, you can be sure that when the sun goes down folks will be gathering in some park, on some roadside, at some waterfront, with coolers and lawnchairs and the requisite sparklers, eyes to the skies.
It's completely middle-American, baseball-hot-dog-and-apple-pie nerdiness. And it's 20 minutes once a year, I contend, of pure heaven.
photo originally posted by tuey913 on flickr
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