It’s the 4th again…and while I may be caustically pessimistic about how independently “free” this nation actually is given the purposeful growth of government and the control it is exerting all the way down to the Cap & Trade bill specifically telling me how long I can shower, I still adore fireworks and picnics and getting together with family and friends to commemorate how our nation won it’s freedom in the first place. Never mind that our Constitutional freedoms continue to fall under attack…LET’S GO BLOW STUFF UP AND PARTY!
This year my mom and dad have come down for a visit and we are having a great time! Mr. Blu has our pyromaniac stash all ready to go, and the block party is about to get started. This should be a great night. :D
Actually, the way we “do” the 4th now is a lot like how my family did it when I was growing up. Everyone would get together at gram and gramps house by the lake and we’d have the traditional fried chicken, potato salad, and cherry pie all spread out on gram’s red and white checked table cloth in the yard. Lots of sparkler’s being lit off which led to the obligatory writing of one’s name in the air trick. Everyone was swimming or sunning on the dock and everyone would be having a great time just being together (we had a rather large family now that I think about it).
As the sun would set, we’d all hop onto our private barge and head out to the middle of the lake with the rest of the community to watch the spectacular show over the water. There is nothing like watching those showers of gold, silver, red, blue, and green as they reflect brilliantly off the rippling surface of the dark water (and since I don’t have any decent pictures to show you, I will be relying on Flickr – all are from the lake I grew up on though).
Isn’t that gorgeous? Those sparks shower almost down to the water…sometimes they DO touch the water, so close to us we could hear the “hiss” as it’s light was extinguished.
Occasionally, one would shoot off and not go as high as it was supposed to…then we’d wind up with something like this:
That would make for a whole lotta hissin’! :D
And THEN, there was the one time that one went up…*thump*…we watched a light trail of sparks climb, climb, climb…then it slowed down…then it turned and started to fall, straight down to the launch site…the pyrotechnicians started bailing off all sides of the barge and just as the last one leaped, it hit and exploded into the most amazing show any of us had ever seen or ever will see again!
This happened very early into the show so there were about 30 minutes worth of morters all set to go. Well it went all right! *laugh* A full show, ALL at once, on the surface of the lake, in the time span of about 2 minutes. It was SPECTACULAR!!! It looked something like this (The Singapore incident from 2008):
With a dash of this:
It was amazing!!! And no one was seriously hurt, although I think I remember one of the techs did get some minor burns.
Yep…the next year, they made all the boats stay about a few thousand feet away from the barge! LOL! Even with such a precaution in place, the last time I was there (2003ish), one of the canisters tipped over during the show and actually shot a mortar at the beach where the spectators were!
Pretty scary…but beautiful still. Be careful everyone! And have a great time tonight!!! HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!! (enjoy it while you can!)
