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Jul. 4th, 2008 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyWhen I was little, my brother and I would look forward to the fourth of July like crazy. Partly because fireworks=cool, but mostly, I think, because by the time the 4th had rolled around, we were well on our way to our birthdays. I had less than a week, and the boy had even less time to wait. Still, we'd wait until it got dark [annoying our parents to no end, I'm sure] and then we'd bug my mother. "When will they start? Now? Now? Now? How about now?"
Our house was situated perfectly so that we didn't have to go to the fireworks. They came to us. If you timed it just right and the Yacht Club was splurging, we'd catch the tail end of their fireworks display [they used to do theirs before the City] and then maybe ten minutes would pass, and we'd stand out on the porch and the fireworks would begin. Yes, kids. I could stand on my front porch and see the display almost as well as everyone camped out on every bridge leading to the historic district. The one year my dad thought to try and take us closer? We ended up back at home.
Now that I'm grown up *cough*, I have to walk to the backyard and pray that the storms over the last year have kept the trees from getting too tall, and even then there's no guarantee I'll see anything more than the occasional flash. And I still can't muster the sort of joy that I used to get. Sigh. To be fair though, I think the year or two my grandfather spent in the hospital kinda sucked much of the good memories out of the holiday, and the underwhelming plans for the grown up years have just done very little to restore that giddy feeling. *shrug* Still, sometimes I wonder.
Of course, the Joe setting off fireworks on a weekly basis does kind of take the specialness out of the firework goodness. :P
Also, let the record show that for the last however many years I've managed to avoid hearing the really annoying patriotic music at work. This year I finally caught a little bit of it as I was leaving, but only enough to assure me that yes, I'd go nuts if I had to listen to that for more than two hours.
Bedtime.
Enjoy your grilling, your setting fire to things in various ways, and try not to annoy the rest of the world too much.
Our house was situated perfectly so that we didn't have to go to the fireworks. They came to us. If you timed it just right and the Yacht Club was splurging, we'd catch the tail end of their fireworks display [they used to do theirs before the City] and then maybe ten minutes would pass, and we'd stand out on the porch and the fireworks would begin. Yes, kids. I could stand on my front porch and see the display almost as well as everyone camped out on every bridge leading to the historic district. The one year my dad thought to try and take us closer? We ended up back at home.
Now that I'm grown up *cough*, I have to walk to the backyard and pray that the storms over the last year have kept the trees from getting too tall, and even then there's no guarantee I'll see anything more than the occasional flash. And I still can't muster the sort of joy that I used to get. Sigh. To be fair though, I think the year or two my grandfather spent in the hospital kinda sucked much of the good memories out of the holiday, and the underwhelming plans for the grown up years have just done very little to restore that giddy feeling. *shrug* Still, sometimes I wonder.
Of course, the Joe setting off fireworks on a weekly basis does kind of take the specialness out of the firework goodness. :P
Also, let the record show that for the last however many years I've managed to avoid hearing the really annoying patriotic music at work. This year I finally caught a little bit of it as I was leaving, but only enough to assure me that yes, I'd go nuts if I had to listen to that for more than two hours.
Bedtime.
Enjoy your grilling, your setting fire to things in various ways, and try not to annoy the rest of the world too much.