July Fourth, 2007

Wednesday, Jul. 04, 2007 - 12:22 a.m.

Random July 4th Thoughts:

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My first fourth of July is the one that everybody else remembers except me. But the following year, when I was a year and some months old, my parents thought it would be a wonderful idea to take me to the fireworks display that took place at Ellis Lake. Ellis Lake was a WPA project that replaced several blocks of downtown Marysville.

I am told that I screamed so loudly and was so badly frightened by the noise of the exploding firework shells that my parents were forced to return home with me. For the next three years, when they would take me to the fireworks, it was via the levee on the Yuba City side of the Feather River. And the first time they did that, I wouldn't look directly at the fireworks, but only watched them from the opposite direction, using an old compact mirror that mom used in high school. I got brave enough to turn around when I was four, and by the time I was five, I was a veteran, able to face the noise and the bright lights full on.

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The Fourth of July was also special to me for another reason. It was one of the two days a year that our dog was allowed inside, the other being Christmas. Cricket was our Sheltie, and we kept her inside so the fireworks wouldn't frighten her too much.

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Firework stands were in abundance when I was a child; we almost always patronized the one over in the parking lot of St. Isadore's Church a half block away.

One of the most vivid memories for me is that wonderful smell. That firework smell. The smell of snake and sparkler and pinwheel. That scent is unequalled in strangth of memory for me except by the smell of burning dry walnut leaves.

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In 1976, I was eleven. My grandparents had a spare small black and white television that they kept out on the back porch. On July 4th, 1976, they hooked up an extension cord, and found a small side table that could be moved all the way out to the back patio, and we watched the parades and the fire boats in New York Harbor out in the back yard as we sat at the picnic table.

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Another thing that happened on a July Fourth -- I lost my virginity.

He was a neighborhood boy, who lived around the corner from me and was a year ahead of me in high school. I was lucky enough to have had my patterns set early, I suppose, so the fact of the matter remains that I actually really did love almost everybody I was ever with.

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My favorite fireworks display of all time took place on the Columbia River in 1990 at the site of a Portland Westercon.

It took place during a deluge, and everybody out on the docks couldn't get any damper than they already had.

That convention is extremely special to me for a myriad of reasons, but the fireworks display was definitely one of them.

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These days, my preference is to shelter in place and enjoy the pretty stuff on television, which is fine.

But there are also memories.

Really, really good ones.

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Happy Fourth of July, wherever you are.

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