Musings on the Fourth of July

So, I should have known that things were going downhill fast when I opened the fridge and found a praying mantis flexing its legs in front of the vegetable bin.

But what the hell, it was our nation's birthday. I did not bake it a cake, but I made it some damned good baked cornbread and the Grumpy made ribs--not the piggy kind, the beefy dinosaur bone kind.

Traditionally, we start out the day with the playing of patriotic songs, not the least of which is our national anthem. No one batted an eye when we lived on base, whether overseas or stateside, but in Tumbleweed Junction, some of our neighbors find our patriotic fervor just a little bit strange. Damned commies!

Ahem.

Anyway, I can see how folks are not quite as jazzed up about the Fourth as they used to be when your Savage was just a wee little thing. When I was a child, fireworks were sold on every corner and vacant lot and everyone gathered in the street to shoot them off. Folks churned homemade ice cream and barbequed meat and drank lots of beer and stuff like that.

Even the littlest ones were handed a "punk" to wave around in circles. The orange glow would linger long enough to make a pattern in the night air, sort of like drawing on an Etch-a-Sketch. Nowadays, fireworks are illegal most places. Our nation's special night has been robbed of its brightness. They tell us that fireworks are dangerous. People have lost eyes, fingers and maybe other appendages as well.

Hmm... I know something else that is very dangerous. Every year, thousands of people die and millions are injured, in automobile accidents. Let us ban those murdermobiles!

A few of my more renegade neighbors bought illegal fireworks in the one local county that can still sell them, or they bought over the border in Mexico. The 'works were exploded as clandestinely as possible, to avoid arrest by the roving fireworks detection squads.

I did not actively participate in the limited fireworks display. Instead, I climbed to the top floor of the big pink pile of stucco and watched the governmentally limited display. I watched my next door neighbor share the magic of sparkly fireworks with his little son. I swear that if I had heard one more ooh or aah from that darling little child, I would have dissolved into a puddle of mommy goo.

Aah! The colors! The sizzle! The howling dogs!

The sulfurous stink! How could I have forgotten that?