The firecrackers, the sparklers, the small bottle rockets, pinwheels and other things you can fill your shopping basket with are, of course quite a bit smaller and less dangerous than the artillery your town or city are likely to be using to light up the sky and they're probably set off remotely by professionals, but making smoke and noise on the 4th of July is still well ingrained in our tradition even now that candles are so lethal we're advised never to use them, burning leaves in the fall is highly illegal ( even though shooting a gun in your back yard no longer is in Florida) and every TV show or advertisement that shows anyone driving a car has to have a disclaimer advising us that only trained professionals on a closed course should ever, ever drive fast enough to make the fallen autumn leaves rustle. A show about Alaskan bush pilots I often watch begins with the warning never, ever, to fly planes "at home." Seriously.
I have to think it's sad that the fondest memories I have of childhood: riding my new Raleigh for endless unsupervised miles with the wind in my hair and without body armor, the smell of burning leaves in October, of gunpowder in July -- things like riding beltless and booster seatless in Dad's new MG when I was 9, these are all things that could get you arrested today. Today when life is so dull and safe we retreat into a violent virtual world, when kids are afflicted with lethal allergies because they never encountered a bacterium until they were 25 and can be expelled from school for carrying a nail clipper or an aspirin tablet.
Yes, for sure -- some Budweiser addled, shoeless swamp cracker will hold a firecracker too long today and blow off a finger and some kid will burn his hand with a sparkler, but I'll guarantee a bunch of people will be killed on jet skis and in boats, will drown at the beach and drive their cars under the influence and kill someone coming home from the municipal fireworks show, but that we really aren't going to be asked to ban boats, beaches or beer. Not yet, anyway.
Coming from Illinois, of course -- a state where your car can be confiscated if sparklers are found in your trunk ( but not a firearm) -- it still takes me aback that one can be a criminal so vile and loathsome that your neighbors will shun you in one place and in another place, sometimes right across the state line, you're just an ordinary, law abiding citizen with a good shot at running for mayor.
I saw on TV just the other day, that Chicago has seen more than a 35% increase in violent murders lately, while New York as had a 17% decrease. Seeing as both cities have the most severe gun control laws in the country, I'm interested to know how the "ban it" people are going to explain it all by the need for more and stricter bans. Of course the current Chicago crime wave is the result of our fiercely defended 'substance' bans which finance gangs and gang wars, just as it was during Prohibition when anyone could buy a Thompson submachine gun, or "Chicago typewriter" at the hardware store but a beer would land you in the slammer.
A cynic might be tempted to claim that bans are better at causing crime than at preventing it, but although I'm tempted to agree, I'm cynical enough to think that such an observation wouldn't persuade anyone that I'm not a terrorist and a public menace for having bought sparklers along with the Bratwurst yesterday or that I enjoy an occasional afternoon at the shooting range. I'd really like to give my grandson a ride in my Corvette too, but alas. . .
I don't mind fireworks so much as the propensity of certain individuals around my watering hole to buy the things before it's legal to buy and use them (a four-day period), so one has to put up with pet-frightening loud kabooms for about two weeks. We used to have a huge problem with chuckleheads firing weapons into the air on the 4th. They're not intelligent enough to realize that the bullets have to come down somewhere. But that problem seems to have diminished in the past ten years.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, happy birthday America! 236 today.
It's a 12 month thing in Florida, but then this time of year the kaboom thing comes from the constant Summer thunderstorms. The sky flickers all night too. I think we hold the record for people killed by lightening every year. I'm surprised there isn't a move to ban it.
ReplyDeleteChuckleheads, bozos, nitwits, idiots and Republicans. The state is full of them and there just aren't enough alligators to keep the population down.
Hmm... what would a cynic say?
ReplyDeleteWell, perhaps he'd take a more immediate view. As I said on Facebook on, in fact, the 4th (yesterday, as I write this):
It's 11 a.m. and we've heard 3 major fire responses. I'm willing to bet that not a single firefighter got today off.
"Hey, let's show how much we love 'Murica by burnin' that mother down!!"
Happy 4th.
Perhaps, though, he'd take the more personal (yet weirdly, slightly wider) view.
My shoulders are so tight you could bounce a quarter off them. My head feels roughly like I've got a clamp attached to my temples. And I've got tension forcing my muscles to seize up at random moments.
The Trophy Wife tells me that it's like this every year; I've just been blocking it out. I've been telling myself that I'm in my forties, and this is what I can expect as I'm growing older.
Outside the house, another bright red explosion has just lit up the sky, along with a loud crack. It startled me and I misspelled the word "older." Twice.
I'm in good shape. I don't even want to imagine what they're going through at the VA Hospital tonight.
And tomorrow night is the Fourth.
Or maybe he'd just point out that July 5th is the national celebration of "I got drunk and blew shit up. But I'll let somebody else clean up after me."
Which might just be the perfect description of the American Spirit.