4th of July musings
Jul. 5th, 2006 08:56![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mapsedgeMy father, an "old schooler" as my older brother says it, would rarely allow me to buy fireworks. As all us Morris kids were allowed to do pretty much our own thing most of the time, you can be sure it didn't have anything to do with safety. It was about money, as almost every facet of his life was.
"Might as well set fire to a stack of dollar bills," he'd grumble, then hand me a five dollar bill to make stretch as far as it could go, which wasn't far. Bottle rockets, mostly, and some Black Cat firecrackers. I didn't have any concept of what the larger rockets did, and didn't have enough money in any case.
So, maybe I overcompensate now. I've discovered the bigger fireworks, the ones that shoot into the air some seventy-five or a hundred feet and "break" (to use the industry term) in a colorful explosion of sparks and glittery bits that rival some professional shows. We still set a limit on the spending, though it's ten times what my father was willing to let go of.
I guess he was so wrapped up in his own issues that he forgot to watch his child's face, never saw the anticipation, the wonder, the joy. I let Katie light her own smoke bombs this year, and a few ground flowers, all under tight supervision, of course. From that moment on, she didn't care a fig for what the firework actually did, it was all about the lighting of the fuse, and it was fun.
We learned that the permanent store in Odessa shows videos of what each firework does, and will probably go there on the next July 2nd or 3rd.
I'm looking forward to next year.
"Might as well set fire to a stack of dollar bills," he'd grumble, then hand me a five dollar bill to make stretch as far as it could go, which wasn't far. Bottle rockets, mostly, and some Black Cat firecrackers. I didn't have any concept of what the larger rockets did, and didn't have enough money in any case.
So, maybe I overcompensate now. I've discovered the bigger fireworks, the ones that shoot into the air some seventy-five or a hundred feet and "break" (to use the industry term) in a colorful explosion of sparks and glittery bits that rival some professional shows. We still set a limit on the spending, though it's ten times what my father was willing to let go of.
I guess he was so wrapped up in his own issues that he forgot to watch his child's face, never saw the anticipation, the wonder, the joy. I let Katie light her own smoke bombs this year, and a few ground flowers, all under tight supervision, of course. From that moment on, she didn't care a fig for what the firework actually did, it was all about the lighting of the fuse, and it was fun.
We learned that the permanent store in Odessa shows videos of what each firework does, and will probably go there on the next July 2nd or 3rd.
I'm looking forward to next year.
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Date: 2006-07-05 20:15 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 16:32 (UTC)