When I was a kid, I LOVED fireworks. I would save my allowance for weeks leading up to the 4th of July. Some years, I’d have 20 or 30 bucks saved up, and in 1983 that was quite a chunk of change for a 9 year old.
Dad always said it was like burning money, which I suppose it is, but if you could light a dollar bill and have it explode into a shower of colorful sparks and loud noise, I would have.
Of course, the authorities realized just how dangerous all the really fun fireworks were, so they banned anything good and we were stuck with the boring old “Safe and Sane” fireworks. Basically, anything that exploded or left the ground was verboten. All we were left were fountains and ground bloom flowers. Whistling petes and snakes and smoke bombs. While these were fun, they weren’t near as good as they could be.
I also remember the old fireworks show the city would do out at the fairgrounds. Let’s just say, they were nothing like what we see today. Essentially, what they would do is shoot off one shell about ever 5 minutes. I remember loving to see them, but waiting between them was horrible and half the time you weren’t looking in the right direction when they actually went off. To this day I still can’t believe they actually thought shooting them off like that was a good idea.
Now that I’m older, I haven’t bought fireworks in years. I don’t remember the last time I forked over cash of my own for the damn things. Funny how as I get older, the more and more like my dad I become.
Fast forward to last night. It was our first 4th in the new neighborhood. Now, I know we’re in a nicer area but I would have NEVER guessed so many people would spend so much on fireworks. And, we ain’t talkin safe and saners here. There were some of the most impressive private mortars I have ever seen. And from our backyard, you could see them in all directions. It was UNREAL. There were constant large fireworks exploding in the air. I mean we must have been able to see $500,000 worth of fireworks from our backyard. I’m not exaggerating. I have never been in a war, but if I had, I would imagine it would be like my house last night (except for the little fact that no one was trying to kill me). If I was a vet with post-traumatic stress disorder, I would have been in hell last night.
To top that off, you could see the city of Boise fireworks (well, the higher ones at least) that were over 12 miles away. Then once those were nearly finished, we saw some more big professional one starting right close to us. Turns out that the city of Eagle was doing fireworks launched from Eagle Island State Park which is just north of us. We just stood in our backyard and watched another professional show. It was great!
We were a bit bummed that we were too tired to go out and watch fireworks, but little did we know that we would have amazing fireworks shows visible from our own backyard.