July 4ths Past

I don't remember ever not going out to see the fireworks. July 4th always felt to me to be a halfway mark in the year....it was like another New Year's Celebration! I always missed Dick Clark on July 4th, it was like having a celebration with fireworks without him was just sad.

The elation I felt when I saw a new kind of fireworks was highened...the only other time I felt that way was with my head buried in a book. Do this day I'm still amazed every time a firework takes a shape of a cube or a circle. How do they do that???

The last 4th of July I remember that doesn't bleed into the rest is one I spent without my parents. Last year, right before my wedding, my fiancee and I and my friend John went to the Sparks Marina to watch the "Star Spangled Sparks" fireworks. We sat around eating and set up chairs and talked about everything and nothing. We were bored while waiting for the fireworks, but it was nice to be bored with other people. We watched the seagulls, and named one Ed, because he looked like Ed Sullivan. I'm not kidding either, a seagull...exactly like Ed Sullivan. We couldn't stop joking about it.

Finally the fireworks started. I remember them being average, and remembered to July 4ths past that every year there was a new one. Not this year...but I was among friends, and we all laughed together, when halfway through they turned on the sprinklers on the other lawn, sending people flying. There were maybe 25-50 people there who had all laid down blankets and one even put up a small tent. They were all soaked by the time they got out of there.

I remember at the end of the night smiling and thinking how much fun it had been, and how after next month things were never going to be the same.