Derek J. Barbee
7/5/98

The Fourth of July

Attention everyone! Stand up straight, spit out that cud you're chewing, and you sir, stop picking your nose. Salute your flag on this glorious day of Independence, when our ancestors defeated somebody else and called it a war! So salute, citizens and cows! Salute the red, white and . . . um . . . whatever!

.

But aside from that folks, there's the real world. It's still weird, but at least some of us here are sane. Some.

Just a few days ago we had the Fourth of July, where dozens of people get together to blow things up! How wonderful!

I really don't know why we like doing stuff like this. Maybe it's just some sort of American gene or some subliminal message hidden in Nike commercials. But, either way, it's kind of fun. (There, see? It's got me, too!)

In our town it's illegal to buy fireworks and set them off by yourself because it's always so dry around here this time of year. But the town next to us it's okay. So, most of us buy a bunch of fireworks, go next door and set 'em off. We did that last year. Kind of weird how in one night, the population of my town drops to about 3 people, then back to several thousand.

But this year we went to the spot where the city sets off a bunch of 'em on the High School Football Field. Last year a couple of guys were trying to make it through the goal posts. When that didn't work, one of them put some fireworks in a football and kicked it. Damn near blew his foot off. I've tried that before. It's kinda cool.

Anyway, we went there early, at 8:05 or so. I think we all had some futile hope in our minds that there would be a spot there. Oops. Forget that. We had to search for quite a while until we found a seemingly nice spot. (Didn't look that good after the fireworks started going. Apparently, we got the spot that was right in the center of five hundred babies that screamed every time a firework exploded. Great.) So, we sat there for a while, looking at the sky and waiting for it to get dark. It got dark enough for to start at 9:35. By then, we had dozens of those little bugs that infest the field jumping on us and a lovely sensation known as 'dampness' setting in. Finally, the big bug zapper lights went off and everybody cheered. I was sorta confused. Beats me, maybe turning off the lights was a signal for everybody to cheer. (I tried at home with my sister later. It didn't work. She just fell off her chair and started groping around in the dark, trying to get me. I considered a career as monster that hides in a closet.) But anyway, about fifteen seconds later, one firework went up with a little pow. Again, the cheering. Strange.

Then they started going up, one at a time with occasional groups of them. I had seen some bats flying past earlier, but now I only saw one that dropped from the sky like it had been hit by anti-aircraft guns when one of the fireworks went off.

And I swear, some of those things must have been bombs left over from World War II. They had the sort of explosion that left you wondering why you couldn't hear anything anymore.

"Hey, Earl! This must one of them A-Bomb thingies!"

"Huh. Send it up anyway."

But I liked it. At one point my mom pointed out that you could see the little people in little red suits lighting the fireworks, then moving out of the way very quickly. As a matter of fact, at one point a bit past the center of the show, there was a pause in the fireworks. Everybody looked at the little red guys and all the little sizzles. Then suddenly they were big sizzles. And the little red guys were running, diving to get out of the way. Seconds later, just as one guy who was too close dived, there was an enormous explosion and a whole box went up, showering the night sky with dozens of them at once. The cheering was thunderous, and I doubt you could hear the ambulance siren at that point for all the crowd noise.

This is America. We like explosions and people having near-death experiences. It's how we get entertainment. Now we look for entertainment in things like this, movies, thrill rides. Back in the caveman days they didn't need it. Grog and Harry got all the excitment they needed just going out for breakfast in the mornings.

"Harry! Look out for that swamp thing!"

"Aaaaiiiieeeee!"

Then it got to the grand finale, where they just set everything on fire and hope it blows up with a big explosion.

"Moo!"

"Dang. Let's try the pig."

Hundreds of booms, bangs and pows turned everyone's eardrums to dust and their eyes to rocks. Before our eyes, we happily added to the problem of Urban Night Illumination by 47%. It was as light as day for around 30 breathtaking seconds. Then it ended, but nobody cheered because we all had no breath and had to inhale first. Then we cheered.

It finally ended, with everyone standing up, wiping the grass off their butts and tripping over their kids in their attempt to find where they parked. After a couple minutes of secret laughter and watching people trip and curse, the people finally turned the park lights on, and half the teens there finally found out who they'd been making out with.

"Grandma?!?!?! AAAAHHHHH!!!!"

Then we finally found our car and attempted to leave, in the midst of hundreds of people with the exact same, simple-minded thought ("Ooo, traffic jam, got more cars than a beach got sand"). Just then, the firemen laughed their heads off and lit the batch of other fireworks they had been saving just to throw us off. More thunderous explosions. This time it was so loud there could have been a drive-by-shooting by the Mafia and no one would notice.

I'm just glad we got out of there alive.

"Hey! You ran over Earl!"

[Navigator]