Fireworks

I can understand people wanting to shoot off fireworks for the Fourth of July. But I don’t understand why people insist on bursting their bombs into the wee hours of the night on the days leading up to it as well.

Fireworks have their place, which is to mark celebrations on a grand scale. In my opinion, they do not belong in the hands of minors and drunks, but alas, that is usually where they end up. I suppose I’d feel different if we didn’t have cats freaking out the last few nights or kids trying to sleep. Then again, probably not. I’ve never really been a big fireworks fan, other than as an observer. At least our dog doesn’t mind them at all.

Although, I suppose I do have to thank our landlord for telling us that Independence Day in this neighborhood is pretty crazy before we moved in. However, I wasn’t expecting the sheer amount of fireworks going off. I mean, we moved from an area where there were quite a few white trash people across the street in various forms of mobile dwellings ranging from manufactured homes, travel trailers and old school buses that fortunately were out of view from the street thanks to a thick line of pine trees. But their blatant pyromaniacy was quite prominent. It makes me wonder why people can’t afford to buy their kids decent clothes, but have the money to spend hundreds of dollars on a few minutes worth of crappy entertainment. Okay, so now I’m just being mean, but seriously, the cost isn’t worth the end results. I can think of many other things to spend that money on.

I guess I just don’t understand the whole fascination with lighting them off myself when I can watch them at various places for free with better displays than anything sold on the market. While large crowds aren’t really my thing either, I’d still rather watch them at Fort Vancouver here in town or drive up to Longview, Washington for the display around Lake Sacajawea than watch our neighbors light off their inferior rockets. I know many people will disagree with me on this issue, but I’m just saying I can think of far more important things to spend my money on. However, I suppose I also must take into account that these displays are partially funded by sales of fireworks from official stands, so to that end, I also must thank those same people for funding these shows.