Firecracker

I grew up very near Boston. Every year, we could hear the big fourth of July fireworks show in the distance. Not in great detail, just the soft bumping contours of the explosions crashing off the blue hills and granite quarries behind us. Oh yes, we could hear them, but we couldn't see them. We were just a little too far away and going in to town for the show was not allowed. It was the topic of one of my father's frequent rants. This was one he felt quite secure in though. Because this one was not just about being better than other people - although the inevitable traffic and the "all the g.d. tourists" also featured so prominently in the rant that you almost felt the extreme discomfort of being there parked in the southeast expressway traffic with Dad.

No, the reasons we couldn't go into Boston to see one of the best fireworks displays around was because of safety. First off, there was undoubtably "freddy three fingers" who was in charge of handling the fireworks who just might fumble a charge, blowing everybody to bits. There were, according to our dad, also the "maggots" who trolled the edges of crowds picking pockets and who might commit other unspeakable criminal acts. Our father once worked in the post office and briefly was a letter carrier. He would tell us every year that the day after a big event in Boston, they would find all the wallets that had been stripped of cash then thrown in the street mailboxes. We couldn't even go to the suburban fireworks displays. Same reasons, just maybe fewer pickpockets, fewer mailboxes, but far more morons.

To combat this, or to at least express our displeasure with our father's decision and reasoning (which even at the time seemed like overprotective elitist bullshit - although in my age appropriate vocabulary, it was just plain old bullshit), when we heard the fourth of July Boston fireworks, we would go and stand on the second floor porch off the living room and after each thud, we would react as if we were watching them:

(thud) Oooooh!
(boom) Ahhhhh!
Hey dad, you gotta come out and listen to these fireworks! They sound great!


I'm reminded of this tonight as I listen to the firecrackers exploding not too far off. Mostly whistlers, but a few cracks and pops come from the humid darkness outside my open window. The town postponed this year's big display due to the rotten weather but I am happy to say that I know from last year I will have a great view right from my porch.

This is something I consider to be happy irony.