fireworks!!

Every year, my hometown has a big celebration in June. A day filled with fried foods, country crafts, and OLD time gospel music. Not my idea of a good time, but because it is my hometown, I try to make it if I am home. The night ends with a literal *bang*, fireworks.

Now, my hometown has a population of about 400 people. We are a SMALL town. But we are very proud of our fireworks show. It easily beats any other fireworks in our county, even better than the long-running July 4th shows in nearby towns.

Tonights show was great fun. We had lots of friends and family crammed into the back of Dad's truck, lying on blankets and watching the show. It was the first year that both of my kids enjoyed it (usually one or both of them end up screaming and having to watch it from inside Poppy's truck) Julian kept reaching for the bright explosions and saying "mine. mine." Bella would follow each display with "Oooh, wow guys. Really coooooool." This was said in a LOUD voice, so that everybody in the park could hear her play-by-play commentary. Her comments were especially loud, because she kept her little fingers jammed into her ears throughout the entire 30 minute show.

As we were watching them, I was reminded of the first year that our town presented the fireworks display. It was awesome. Beautiful. Loud. Very very loud.

My friend's, Jeff and Jerusha had their little boy at the show. He was a little over one year old, and not impressed at all with the fireworks. They were TOO loud. Scary. Frightening. Jerusha was trying to convince him that they were okay. "Look Fisher! Pretty lights!" She tried to explain to him that they were pretty and not scary and that we were having so much fun!! Fisher wasn't buying it. He wanted to go HOME.

As she is trying to calm him down from the safety of the van, one of the coolest f.w. is going off in the sky. A screaming, chasing, "sperm shaped" one(according to my friend, Paul), that comes a little too close to the ground. One small flaming ball flies far from the baseball field, and STRAIGHT towards the tent that we are sitting under, hitting none other than JEFF, Fisher's daddy. Still burning, it lands on Jeff's leg, scorching leg hair, and sending Jeff to frantically run circles and slap at his legs until the fire is out. As you can probably imagine, this did not make Fisher feel better about the "pretty fireworks".

Since that night, the show has gotten considerably safer. That I know of, only one other man has ever been hit with a fireball, but he was a jerk and that kind of made it funnier. But still, sitting in the back of my Dad's truck, watching those little "sperm shaped" flaming suckers shooting towards us, I felt a twinge of anxiety...and though I truly enjoyed the show, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when it was all over. I think that we all did. Another good show, and we each returned home unharmed (aside from minor eardrum damage)...until next June...

posted by mindi11 @ 6/26/2005 12:11:00 AM