A Singular People!

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

This year is my first year in what a local friend calls “Free America.” As in “Welcome to Free America.”

My heart will always be in Colorado, but over the years, the fireworks have gotten smaller and smaller, and any excuse will do to cancel them.

Just about the best shows were in Manitou Springs, where the fire department would go door to door for donations, and buy fireworks depending on how much they got. When one of our friends gave them a lot of money, the show went on FOREVER.

Our house had a balcony facing the mountain, and all our friends gathered there for the fourth. When the show was over, we’d start singing the Star Spangled Banner. Sometimes the firemen yelled back “You can’t sing.” Which to be fair was true, but we couldn’t sing with LOTS of gusto.

But the last several years have been only “city put on” displays, and kind of blah. A little blah. when they weren’t entirely cancelled.

Until– Well…

I did say my friend said “Welcome to Free America?” Right?

It started three days ago. Zip bang bang bang.

Our yard is excessively wooded, so we only see the faintest glimmer through the green, but there’s a lot of glimmers, all over. Like…. inextinguishable freedom. Here and there, a glimmer in the trees.

We sat out on the back porch for about an hour. Bang bang ban. Shimmer shimmer shimmer. For about a glorious half hour our neighbor across the street put on the best display I’ve seen in a long time. (This is not to put down our neighbors last year, who had kids running around, singing and setting off sparklers, while carrying the flag and waving it. I mean, they were marines. But there wasn’t a firework display.)

And I told my husband “I’ve never seen anyone in any other country do this for their country’s day. Not… regular people, on the street, putting off firepworks displays and waving the flag, and being enthusiastic.”

To be fair, although the rest of the west is catching up, there are also few other country governments who have such undisguised disdain and hatred for their own land.

So, here we are. Our government might want to destroy the country. (And be making great inroads.)

But America, the real America, the America of the American people is not destroyed or under siege. America, the real America remembers what we are and for what we are.

And we light up the nights with fireworks, and make freedom ring loudly.

We’re not done. They can’t take us out, and they can’t succeed. We can, but we’re going to have to endure the crazy stuff they throw at us, first.

In the end, though, we win, they lose.

And in the meanwhile, we can make the bombs burst in air, and show them that, yes, our flag is still there.

This year, as every year, thank you guys for allowing me to join this singular nation, this self-chosen people, the oddities, the freedom lovers, the unexpected ones.

Thank you for allowing me to join the Freedom-lovers gang.

And now I’m going to celebrate.

155 thoughts on “A Singular People!”

  1. Come to east Tennessee sometime, Sarah! It’s been banging here since Friday! Folks get excited enough that they just can’t wait…

    1. Same here on the border. They’ve been popping off since Friday and fireworks tents are everywhere.

    2. North Idaho started booming Friday as well. Today is the parade and festivities downtown!

    3. Old Franklin was more subdued until Sunday. The local church here in Central, Tennessee* has a show. They buy them from the fire department. Several neighbors accompanied the show.

      *the comma matters

  2. We’re in Vermont for the 4th and one of the neighbors did fireworks over the pond for Independence Eve. It was glorious. And, it’s been bang, bang, bang for a few nights now.

    Happy Independence Day!!

  3. Happy Independence Day!
    When the people of the British Colonies in America got fed up with the tyranny of George III and Parliament, and violently revolted against their own ‘legal’ government.

  4. EWTN has a nice Independence Day Mass going on.

    The homily really threaded the needle, talking about the duty to serve God rather than men, but also the virtue of patriotism and how it is justly grown through the duties of citizenship. The priest got very stern about admonishing people to remember to pray for bad Catholics, including politicians doing un-Catholic things, in the hope that they will repent.

    Nice restrained choral motet at the Offertory of “America the Beautiful.” I need to hear as much of that as I can, because honestly I’m terrible at choral restraint.

    1. Gotta get moving pretty soon, to go to the Fairborn 4th of July parade at 10 AM. I’m usually working, so I’m pretty excited to attend. And fireworks tonight at the park!

        1. Fairborn Ohio? I was stationed at WPAFB in the late 80s – early 90s and Fairborn had an awesome parade for the 4th. Our kids were little then and it was great!

          1. I spent the summers at WPAFB (Area B) doing my Ph.D. summer work in the Avionics Lab clean room 89-91. Stayed in Huber Heights first year, Beavercreek second year, in the Wright State dorms the third year. Loved the airshow!

            1. Yup, it’s still pretty special around here. Could be better, but it’s pretty darned good as is.

              Man, the little kids made out like bandits, with all the candy that people in the parade were throwing.

              1. Memories! Do the Shriners still zip around in their little cars!?

            2. AFIT 88-89, then Engineering (home office/Trainers SPO). Moved to Area A – 4950th Test Wing in 93. Rented a house in Huber Heights for the first year as well, then moved on base.

  5. Texas Hill Country is in a deep enough drought that fireworks are limited. It will still be a day worthy of celebration and small town spirit will rise above the threat of wildfires. Public readings of the Declaration of Independence, parades, picnics, etc. will all go on. You can’t stop Free America. Welcome home.

    1. But you know there are plenty who will anyhow.. I say, if they take precautions, let’em!
      I would caution against aerial ones, though.

      1. Our town is doing plenty of Ka-booom over the lake, so we’ll have that. Dry enough here that the thought of beer fueled Roman candle battles doesn’t sit well. I will miss hearing my windows rattle from huge explosions all over the neighborhood.

      2. I’m in California. Aerial fireworks have been banned for decades, but people still set them off.

        And honestly, they shouldn’t. This damned state is a firetrap, and ground fountains are quite nice, and I am SICK of the summers of red skies and unbreathable air. Show some common sense, dammit. Even our neighbors from the great green South get it and don’t set off the aerials.

        Mind you, if you DO live in the damp places where setting off fireworks over grass doesn’t guarantee a conflagration, go for it. But understand where you live.

        1. I live in California, and the reason why we get such horrible tinder box conditions is because our Greenie masters think brush clearing and controlled burns are bad and they get to blame the subsequent infernos on Global Warming or some shit.

          1. For people who claim to love the Forest—or scrubland—Primeval, the hard-core Greens sure can’t be bothered studying what that ecosystem entailed, and what’s required to keep it the way they want it. Loud sigh in Environmental Historian

          2. I was at summer camp last week with a certified Forestry expert (“I get to interact with nature by setting it on fire.”) His comment was that private timber companies are far better at managing fuel load than the federal and state companies, and he has the data to prove it.

            And yes, he was in charge of managing the gigantic camp’s forests, which means careful trimming and making burn piles in the summer, then burning them in the damp winter.

    2. Some of the areas have started doing drone nets, so we can have the light show when the area’s likely to light off from fireworks.

      2. This afternoon, it’s target practice day in $TINY_TOWN. Some rifle and shotgun, and somebody trying spray & pray with a semiauto pistol. Mercifully, Kat the dog doesn’t freak out over gunshots.

        Haven’t seen any mention on Insty yet, but there’s been a mass shooting in Highland Park, IL (NW suburb of Chicago, kind of upscale.) Creep shot at the parade, killing some (I’ve heard 6) people. Linkage from CTH: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/07/04/manhunt-underway-as-suspect-shoots-16-people-during-july-4th-celebration-in-highland-park-illinois/

        The governor’s immediate response is to call for Moar Gun Control! [gets on hands and knees to retrieve eyes.]

        1. I found the Dems’ IMMEDIATE politicization of this affair to be disgusting. It’s clearly time for strict new Liberal Control legislation. Perhaps a ban on them.

          1. Folks on Gab were noting the alleged age of the shooter (18-20) and the indication that a semi-auto was used. Curious how there just happens to be bills prepared to deal with such. (How in hell does one get the age of a shooter in an active situation? “Excuse me sir, how old are you, and please don’t shoot me.”)

            The phrase “MKUltra wind up toy” comes to mind, too, considering the distance between conspiracy and reality is < 6 months…

            1. Since the last three days has has been near-constant “F the 4th, brought to you by the Democratic Party of whatever”, I can imagine they’re a little spun up…..

        2. Expect, other than the gun control aspect, to have the parade shooter swept under the rug. Reputably to be a convict in possession of a gun. So not allowed to have a firearm, no matter what his age is, or what type of gun he has. But that is second hand. Haven’t gone online to find the sources reporting this.

          1. The “person of interest has been caught. He’s 22, has facial and neck tattoos and no chin to speak of. His father is alleged to have run for Mayor. He called himself, “Awake, the Rapper,” and did a creepy song about “sleepwalking,” toward an inevitable fate.
            Thus sayeth Twitter, so far.

            1. Ace of Spades points to a rose emoji placed at the end of his Twitter handle and claims that that’s a symbol used by Antifa. No idea if he’s correct about the emoji, but perhaps someone else can confirm that part.

              1. Not a confirmation, but Portlandia calls itself “The Rose City”, so I’d rank it as plausible. As memory serves, those creeps call themselves Rose City Antifa.

              2. More about him on both official and unofficial news. Looks like he’s at least a part-time transvestite, and the pictures give off a serious impression of someone quite familiar with pharmaceuticals, both legal and illegal.

                He’s a nut job, IMHO. I suppose he’s going to be yet another one who’s spent a lot of time in psychotherapy.

  6. It’s been banging out here in God’s Country on the far fringes of Charlotte since Friday. And if the storms hold off, I expect it to really rock tonight. Friday was the nearby town display, which was pretty good, but Saturday and last night were all locals and their own skybooms. We’ve had a lot of quality inside dog time the past three nights. 🙂 (As if the Author wanted us to celebrate, we had a gullywasher Friday afternoon that gave us some desperately-needed rain and cleared out in time for fireworks.)

    And Sarah? Thank YOU for coming to join us.

    1. Our town is doing the skybooms tonight. We haven’t had a lot of local boom… mostly because it scares the neighbor’s horses and cows. I suspect in town it’s going to be livelier. There’s a neighborhood near the official display that seems to think of itself as the opening act and does a respectable job of it.

  7. Let truth-beauty-goodness while through! The forces of darkness ordain their own demise. God Bless America!

    1. Let truth-beauty-goodness ‘shine’ through! The forces of darkness ordain their own demise. God Bless America!

      *** whoever invented ‘auto-correct’ is vile ***

  8. Where did you move to? We can’t even go to Colorado because the weed smell is so prominent, and my wife is allergic. Down here in East Texas the only smell on the breeze is the ribs I’m smoking, this evening the air will be rife with the gunpowder tinged odor of FREEDOM!

  9. Saturday morning, at synagogue, our “sermon” was a free form discussion of the words on the Liberty Bell. “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”. A quote from Torah. First, what is liberty? We decided that the Torah got it right (big surprise). Liberty or freedom is the ability for each person to pursue their own path. For this to happen, several things are needed. Society must be just. But how is justice to be achieved? The must be leaders – anarchy does not produce a just society. The leaders must be constrained by a framework of laws – unconstrained leaders typically do not act justly for long. And the framework must be published, stable, and understood. Here is where an amazing thing happened. Several congregants, ardent abortion rights activists, agreed that the SCOTUS Dobbs decision was correct. You can’t make up the framework (for the ancient Hebrews the Torah, for the USA the Constitution) as you go along.

  11. From the Declaration of Independence – “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” The Reader thinks this seems oddly relevant today.

    Oh and Happy Independence to all from the Reader!

    1. “For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:”

      …something something January 6 Protestors something something eighteen months in solitary something something haven’t even been charged yet….

  12. With 418 forest fires across Alaska, not a lot of fireworks this Fourth in this neighborhood.

    Bangs none the less, will be in abundance including my 50 cal. percussion rifle and my 12 gauge, double barrel Diablo shotgun pistol.

    Let Freedom Ring!

      1. Alaska may be colder than the lower-48, but still has forests.

      3. Really big forests, too.

        Alaska tends to get really big fires for that reason; (our 400,000 acre Bootleg fire notwithstanding, nor the million acre Dixie fire in Cali). There’s a 747 fire tanker; Alaska can use that… SoCal and occasionally Oregon will get the DC10. Our fire usually used C130s, P3s and a medium sized jet; not sure which one, perhaps a 757.

        (The C130s are aging out, and other planes are coming into service. The regular fire equipment around here tends to be helicopters.)

      4. Hum, Alaska covers some 424.5 million acres.
        1.59 million of those acres are covered with forests.

        For example with high of 81° F. and scattered thunderstorms predicted in my neighborhood today, fires a real possibility.

      5. Yes, lots and lots of forest. The lightning tracker in the fire camp HQ was amazing to watch during the occasional thunderstorm. I spent one summer as mechanic for an initial attack helicopter contracted to the state for fire suppression. It was a slow fire summer since the Exxon Valdez went on the rocks that spring.

  13. I used to enjoy Independence Day fireworks. Now that I’ve gotten older and decidedly more crotchety, I have no enthusiasm for them anymore. Let others celebrate with bright lights and loud noises, while the foundations of our liberty are carefully and cunningly stolen away. I have seen too many of our high government officials abandon honesty and integrity for the sake of partisan advantage, I have seem too much of “your speech is violence and our violence is speech, while official mouthpieces go “Hear, hear”, I have seen too many of our political and cultural elites enthusiastically take up causes I think foolish, abhorrent, and destructive, and threaten to use the power of government to force them on an unwilling populace. My feelings this Independence Day run more along the lines of John Paul Jones and Captain John Parker of the Lexington Minutemen.

  14. Here on Northshore Mass. near the real Arkham asylum there were some Community fireworks. Many local towns have fireworks on days other than 4th or adjacent days because the number of folks capable of large (mortar based) sky shells is small due to MA insane licensing requirements. Last night (7/2) was quiet for small stuff. It’s easy enough to get as NH and parts of Maine have legal fireworks. We’ll see what happens tonight. We’ve had a few Karen types move in in the last few years and they seem to be constantly complaining. I’d hate to be their kids, must be real fun ” No Jimmy you can’t play with the ray gun you made from legos, take it apart and make a house for your sisters Drag Barbies…”

      1. I live in California, and the reason why we get such horrible tinder box conditions is because our Greenie masters think brush clearing and controlled burns are bad and they get to blame the subsequent infernos on Global Warming or some shit.

        1. I had family in Paradise, and cutting trees to get fire-safe space around houses was anywhere from strongly discouraged to illegal. (Years before that, an upscale town on the SF peninsula mandated wood shingle roofs and was fighting the person who had the nerve to install a tile roof. His house survived a wildfire; the approved roof places didn’t.)

          Curious thing about the Camp fire that destroyed Paradise. The two houses that survived where late MIL had her house both had concrete block foundations that went up 3′ from ground level. All the others had wood down to ground level and were destroyed. (Except one house at the end of the block–wasn’t touched, though it was destroyed in a winter windstorm when several drought-stricken trees fell on it.)

          I haven’t seen the latest small-property rules (applicable to 5 acres and less; we’re 13), but 75′ clear space was required to be safe(ish), and there’s talk of 100′.

          1. Have a former co-worker who has (had?) 40 acres, surrounding one of the small hill bumps on south side of town. They built the house on the top of the hill. He was not happy when the TPTB required him to cut his “baby” trees around the house. They weren’t seedlings, but they weren’t very big around either.

          2. I lived in northern California for a combination of over 8 years. In brush country, which is what I consider the hills between Napa and the central valley, I’d recommend 100′ clearance of all brush, trees, and other burnables, including tall grass. AND any taller trees that if they came down were then within 50 feet of the structure. That to protect a house with a metal or tile roof, and complete brick or stone exterior walls.

            Most people have absolutely NO concept of just how hot even grass fires are. Brush is worse, and full-blown forest fires are as devastating as a nuclear strike from the heat and the winds generated by them.

      2. It’s Massachusetts.
        Pick the creepier one and assume that to be true.
        There’s some good folks in that state, but the state as a whole is even more messed up than mine; my state is just less competent at covering up the corruption.

      3. This (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers_State_Hospital) is just down the road from my home. It is thought to be the original inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft’s Arkham Asylum, and that is thought to be the inspiration for the Batman version so in answer to your question, Yes. The actual buildings except for parts of the Kirkbride building (the visually iconic entrance were demolished as they had gotten quite decripit. The restored/recreated Kirkbride is the common building for an upscale set of apartments now on some of the old State Hospital’s land. How’d you like to live in that, sounds like someplace for bad things to happen in Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter Universe.

          1. Yes indeedy. If I see a bunch of vehicles with green smiley faces with horns on them coming down my road, I’m packing up the family and cats and hitting the road ASAP.

            1. Heh. Maybe I should order a batch with magnetic backing, slap them on my truck, and drive down. Only a bit over an hour from my house.

      4. And no I didn’t see the David Bowie Barbie ad, I was try to be facetious, but apparently reality has trumped my attempts.

  15. As my brother said to his wife while we were sneaking up to the roof of one of the highest buildings on campus Saturday night to watch the city’s fireworks display, “There’s nothing more American than blowing stuff up and evading taxes!”
    He’s not wrong! 😀
    My neighborhood has (relatively reasonable) restrictions on fireworks outside of town due to an epic drought. Still, our neighborhood has had fireworks going off since Friday from sunset till midnight, and it will probably continue through Wednesday night. Our Mexican neighbors, in particular, love fireworks, especially the aerials that you can only get from Wyoming. We didn’t buy any this year, but my brother will certainly come up with something – probably involving steel wool or grease and water in an already-ruined wok. He does love his pyrotechnics!
    Later in the month, we may borrow my dad’s friend’s cannon to get our booms in – he owns an honest-to-goodness black powder cannon, ‘just in case we need to go to war with Idaho’. All our family friends are, uh, quirky.

    1. Copper wool is a good thing to add to that mix. (Or so I’ve heard. I, of course, would never do such a thing. No idea whatsoever how that happened to one of Mom’s cast iron skillets…)

      1. No, I’m pretty sure Dad’s friends are quirky by any standard, ranging from one-eyed woodcarver quirky to Indiana Jones-of-the-Rockies quirky to eccentric millionaire quirky. When they get together, it’s like I’m watching the Beverly Hillbillies re-enact a Patrick McManus escapade. The hijinks they got up to when they were kids would definitely have gotten them in serious trouble in our sadly restricted day and age. As it was, several of them ended up on a watchlist somewhere – something about some missing dynamite and an explosive fishing trip . . .

    3. A friend had a black powder mortar that would shoot number 10 cans full of concrete. No one bothered shooting anything else off after that.

  16. I’m camping this weekend to celebrate Independence Day. Since I don’t have signal in the park itself (I just drove about 4 miles to get Internet access), I downloaded1776 and “The Omega Glory” for celebratory viewing.

  17. Fireworks have been going off every night for the past three, growing more numerous each night. My city isn’t having fireworks because of the fire risk, and $SMALLTOWNBIGPARTY$ opted out this year as well. I suspect the insurance companies lowered the boom, pun intended. So people are making up the slack on their own and Devil take the hindmost.

      2. There’s a lot of city-owned dry grass around the Usual Launch Sites, because of the drought. So this year, I agree with caution, mostly. I’m not sure how many official public fireworks displays cause major grass fires, though. I’ve never looked into it. I did airshow pyro, so we went for ground-level “shock and ‘Aaahhhh!’ “

        1. $TINY_TOWN usually has an unofficial fireworks gathering in front of the fire station. Haven’t set it on fire yet, though they came close a dozen years ago. 🙂 Aerial fireworks aren’t legal in Oregon, though that doesn’t stop them. OTOH, it can be a problem if something goes wrong…

          A couple of incidents from the nearby partially developed subdivision: That area has a lot of vacant land, with three main groups of property:
          A) Some houses with good fire practices and fuels away from the house.
          B) More houses with bad practices. (Protip: don’t stack next winter’s firewood against the outside wall of the house.)
          C) Vacant land that hasn’t seen brush clearing since Crater Lake was formed.

          1) About 4AM July 5th, got a callout for a wildfire. Seems a couple of families were playing with fireworks, including the aerials. One flew over the fence and started a fire in vacant land. They tried to put it out, but called 911 when they couldn’t. Our fire department and Oregon Department of Forestry responded and put it out. The landowners were fined $5000 for the cost of the fire and for being idiots. When they complained, they were told they got off easy.

          2) Many years later, two drunks were playing with fireworks on Bastille day in a grassy area. Hot, dry weather, might have been Red Flag Warning (meaning if a fire starts, all hell is going to break loose). They started a fire. The local agency responded, but it went fast. 2300 acres later and 30 homes (most in group B) destroyed, and the fire was put out. The two responsible were not fined. They couldn’t be found. Despite the 3S rule, word got out that they’ll never be a problem again.

          The 400K acre Bootleg fire is officially listed as a 3-week smolder from a lightning strike that finally burst into flame. This is my skeptical face. Later in the progress of the fire, a couple of wildfires were started via arson, but were held at no more than 100 acres. (FWIW, that fire got something like 1000 homes. Conditions were such that safe space wouldn’t help. That was the first time I saw pyrocumulus clouds, and those went on for several days, including a couple of pyrocumulonimbus ones. Whee.

  18. It’s evening here, and no fireworks tonight, but we had a concert last night, a big meal today, and red, white, and blue hung everywhere. And we all took as much time off work as we could. It’s not the same without family, but we go where God and Uncle Sam call us when we’re called. May God bless you all and enjoy the celebration of Freedom!

    -Padre

  19. The Marin County Fair began at the Lagoon on Thursday – fireworks bursting in air over the water every night. Beautiful reflections. Carnival rides, arts and crafts, food all day long. Evening concerts. Pablo Cruise was the headliner.
    Today, I’m resting. It’s kind of like the old gold mining days. Their festivities started with fireworks at midnight on the 3rd. Happy 4th!

    1. P.S. Alaska’s Capital (an old mining town) still begins their celebrations with fireworks at midnight on the 3rd.

  20. We’ve been having not legal aerial fireworks firing off locally since Friday night June 24th. Heck the legal ones could not sell until Wednesday, June 29. We started the Rodeo to start firing off the aerial fireworks their first night, but they didn’t. They are saving the big show for Monday night, July 4th. We’re speculating fireworks are just bleeping expensive. Not legal street fireworks will continue on through at least Saturday night, July 9th. Don’t know who else is having commercial large displays locally.

    1. I’ve heard of a few towns cancelling fireworks shows because they couldn’t get the materials. With the supply chain issues, I’d believe it.

  21. Another reason I’m sticking close to home today is our fire season is already underway. (when did it ever end) So far, I haven’t heard any not legal fireworks. Dear God please be careful out there and have a hose and buckets and buckets of water just in case!

  22. Something else I find funny about all the local backyard beer-soaked fireworks…as I understand it, here in North Carolina, you basically can’t buy anything fun other then maybe sparklers. At least that’s what I understood in past years. Fortunately, where we live, South Carolina is a short drive away. And in South Carolina, they do not give two craps if you blow your hand off or put your eye out. Knock yourself out, kid, stop at one of the fireworks superstores just across the state line and spend your money and God bless ‘Murica. So everybody from here and even from Virginia will drive to SC pre-Fourth in order to load up on the forbidden skybooms. And it drives the authorities up here crazy. They keep trying to think of ways to block fireworks from entering the state instead of, y’know, loosening the restrictions and getting in on some of that sweet sweet sales tax money. And it never works.

    1. Yes, NC resident here (grew up in SC). Legal fireworks are basically anything that doesn’t leave the ground – sparklers, firecrackers, smoky things. Pah. SC has the good stuff! And some of our neighbors in the cul-de-sac have evidently been on a recent road trip! Boom – boom – boom…

        1. Yeah, I don’t understand it. The will of the people says otherwise.

          The only thing I can figure is that the insurance companies give better city rates if there’s an anti-fireworks ordinance. Because in no way do the police around here enforce anti-fireworks ordinances. There are cities where they do… sorta… but people keep up the fireworks even in those places.

          1. I’d wager on the insurance thing, and maaaaayyyyybe anti-terror, as in “this way no one can make a big boom-can-thing.” Maybe.

          2. Well. Technically where we are. Where we have aerial fireworks going off, well, everywhere. It is county, intermixed with city neighborhoods. While still county, we’re in the “urban growth boundary”. What that means is we are the cities responsibility, according to the sheriff department, and we’re the, sheriffs responsibility according to city PD. Which means we’re ignored. In addition the rodeo is going. Which usually means fireworks. Since the rodeo is less than a mile away, the neighborhood aerial pyrotechnic displays gets lost. But this year the rodeo is only having a huge display tonight.

            Note. The local karen’s are being very, very, vocal on the damage to pets, local wildlife, including birds, and naturally, the folks who suffer from PSTD. How it is selfish to fire anything off. We have cats, we have a dog, none of them are thrilled to the point of huddling together under our bed. The veterans are some of the biggest participants of firing off the aerial displays, and huge street fountain fire displays.

            1. The weather was cool and wet for us on the 4th. I heard some target shooting in the afternoon, but the big, loud booms were absent this year. (Fire danger is only moderate right now, but I think it’ll go to high in a week or two, along with the forecasted 90F days.)

              1. We’ve been cool. We’ve had 5 days of high 70s to low 90s with no rain, total, late June headed to the 4th. Last week was low to mid 70s. Raining today. Have ran the air conditioners 3 days (not counting the times the dang cats turned on one in the middle of the night). Fans running regularly.

                With summer weather delaying, I’m not looking forward to this fall. Fingers crossed, no big fires, no smoke. Won’t hold my breath because other states already have had them roaring.

                1. I have to do my annual eye check this week so I”ll be over the Cascades for a bit. I’ve had a rich history of being gone for major snowstorms and other inconvenient weather, and I’m praying that we don’t get any fire starts. OTOH, we’re not supposed to see really hot weather until Monday.

      2. Back when i was a kid most fireworks were illegal in Georgia, but the farm was close to the SC state line so my cousins put on a display.

        When they legalized fireworks a while back, we started having 4 hour artillery barrages.

    2. Welcome to Oregon. Arial Sky Booms not legal. Neither are firecrackers or roman candles. As a kid we only had sparklers whether we were home or camping. Camping, anywhere, state, federal, county, or private, even sparklers, are not legal anymore. OTOH the firework stands popup June 1st, but don’t open for a few days before the 4th. Small to big boxes, where the fireworks spout fountains, and emit booms and whistles, along with the whistling, flashing, twirlers. Those twirlers are the worst. They hurt my ears, and they hurt my eyes. Now as far as the not legal versions, they can be bought in Washington. The regular firework shops won’t sell them to anyone from Oregon, but the tribes will, happily. They’ll do this all year. Which is why TOPTB haven’t been able to stomp on it, even with limited highway/freeway access between the two states once the Columbia turns west. As adults, from the time the kid was a year old till he left for college, we might have been guilty of a road trip, or two north. Enough neighbors also indulged that I am surprised the neighborhood wasn’t staked out for confiscation, both 4th and New Years. TPTB will confiscate and fine, because we know someone who can legally dispose of them. He does too. Has a big boom party to fire his leftovers and the confiscated ones (he is a certified pyrotechnic and gets paid to put on firework shows).

  23. Public Service Announcement.

    However tempting it might be to aim your fireworks at your lefty neighbors, be the adults and show your kids how to safety enjoy them.

    Brought to you by the Old Man Not Quite in the Mountains of New Hampshire.

      1. So he’d call Vlad Tepes a flaming liberal? 🙂

        Whatever, have a wonderful 4th, everyone, and keep Heinlein’s advice (or maybe it was Woody Smith’s) about clothes and weapons firmly in mind.

  24. A few years ago we had cops cruising the neighborhoods looking for illegal aerials. I think there were maybe four sites that were setting the things off, and they must have been in contact and telling each other where the police were. Because those things only went of where the police WEREN’T, and you don’t get that without some sort of coordination.

    Who knows, maybe it was the families of the cops using cell phone trackers…

  25. We used to drive over to Chinatown to pickup the goodies. We’d have a backyard party at the end of a lane that backed up against a cow pasture. The fireworks display was set up over the swimming pool on the end of the diving board. Music blasting. We invited all the neighbors, of course. It was perfect. The good ol’ days.

  26. One of the best things I’ve ever seen was in 2020, when all the respek mah authoritahs cancelled the fireworks show, which draws a couple thousand people from five adjacent small towns to this, the largest, and forbade all gatherings. In response, the ENTIRE TOWN became a fireworks show. Nonstop bangs, booms, and lights all day, and after dusk it got crazy. People brought out mortars that made me fear for the safety of whoever lit those beasts off. Smoke hanging thick everywhere. It was like a war zone with block parties as combatants, fireworks as munitions, and fun as the marching orders. It was glorious. Pure America. Tell people they’re no longer allowed to do/say/think Thing X and then watch the defiance bloom.

    This year everything’s a bit subdued so far. The high price of fireworks, maybe, and we’re getting all the rain that the rest of you are lacking. We’ll see how it goes tonight.

    Happy Fourth to all of you Usaians. 🇺🇸

    1. Did you ever see the aerial helicopter footage from Los Angeles–LOS FREAKING ANGELES–on July 4 2020? The Powers That Be had locked everybody down, said no fireworks, no gatherings, wear your facial cootie covers, sit in your house, and be a good little peon. And most of Socal said “screw you.” It looked like Baghdad 1991 from the news choppers.

      It looked almost like Columbia, South Carolina on NYE 1999/2000…I was in my now-wife’s 10th floor apartment looking west and literally at midnight the entire horizon lit up edge to edge. Never seen anything like it before or since.

      1. Yes! I remember LA and thinking, “Ya know, there’s still some fight left in the place.” And not being overly surprised, because this is the place where the news outlets beg everyone not to shoot into the air on New Years. Every single year.

        1. Where they also ban ammunition sales for — a week? Two weeks? — ahead of both holidays.

          Because OF COURSE somebody stupid enough to shoot into the air plans ahead for their idiocy and buys the ammo a week or so in advance.

          Mind if I join you in your under-the-couch eyeball search?
          ———————————
          The government has been rewarding stupidity and incompetence for the last sixty years and now they are Shocked! to find out that’s what they’ve got.

        2. Lol I live in LA county- remember the Independence Day movie with the ‘splody aliens, there’s a scene where local news media in-universe begging LA residents not to fire their guns at the alien space craft hovering over their city, (before they proved hostile) that scene always gets a big laugh.
          Also just like to mention today happens to be my birthday!

          1. I watched that film with some buddies, two of whom were from CA (LA and San Fran). I thought they were going to die, they laughed so hard at that scene.

    3. Yeah, that also happened in my mid-sized town. In fact, my very own mother went and bought fireworks, which she’d never done before – aerials, even – and we lit off our own half-hour show in front of our house. And now that dusk has descended it sounds like our neighbors are making a repeat of that, hopefully with ample buckets of water handy since we’re currently living on top of a tinderbox what with the drought. I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep before midnight . . .

    1. Far better; she keeps the black dog chained in the basement and dispenses red pills to all and sundry. 🙂

  28. Sometimes the firemen yelled back “You can’t sing.”

    OUTRAGE!!! Of course you can sing! It’s a free country, and–

    Which to be fair was true, but we couldn’t sing with LOTS of gusto.

    Oh. You couldn’t sing WELL. Slightly different thing. I should learn to finish the paragraph before I get in a dudgeon.

  30. Pennsylvania FINALLY legalized the good fireworks 5 years ago…. and this past Friday our legislature rammed through new restrictions, which our Totalitarian governor gleefully signed. Fortunately, the No-Freedom, No Fun Crew in Harrisburg was smart enough to have the law not go into effect until September.

    As it is, the booms have been going off regularly all weekend. Last night in particular was quite spectacular, and The City’s official show isn’t until later tonight.

    Me, my usual ranges are closed today (so the employees can celebrate with their families, can’t hardly blame them for that), so yesterday I went out and zeroed the new optic on my America’s Rifle One Five. Watched 1776 today as was our family’s custom back in the good ol’ days.

    Little Brother texted me asking if I’d left out milk & cookies for Steve Rogers. Not sure if he was joking on good fun or being a sarcastic Leftie (after a decade in academia in the heart of Wokestani New England, he can go both ways), so I responded that, no, milk and cookies are for Santa Clause… and that I left out a slice of apple pie and some en-bloc clips full of .30-06 for Ol’ Cap!

    1. Correction: I double-checked, and while the No Freedom & No Fun Crew has sent the restrictions to Our Totalitarian Governor’s desk, he has not yet signed them into law. Though given his track record, I’ve no doubt that he will gleefully do so.

  32. Pro tip for singing the National Anthem: Cheat. Specifically, go off-key. Start at the very bottom of your vocal register. The tune they set the poem to was designed to force a falsetto…they really should have picked another tune, but we’re here to adapt, improvise, overcome, and sing a cappella. Trust me, it works.

    1. Well, it was a drinking song to begin with. I’m kinder, I tell people it starts at the bottom of the range, not the middle like most songs, so you have to start it lower than you think.

      1. Yup the Star Spangled Banner ( To the tune of the Anacreontic Song AKA To Anacreon in Heaven) takes a solid octave and a fifth range to sing (and that’s if you don’t embellish it at all). Most untrained singers barely have that range. On top of that it is usually performed in B flat or C (major) making the top note an F or (gulp) a G and thus most folks range does not fully overlap with the range of the tune unless they have a high soprano or tenor voice by default. And yes the classic issue is to start a little too high and to end up in deep trouble at Rockets red glare as Glare is the high point of the tune.

  33. We’ve already had two nights of bang bang bang KA BOOM and oooooh ahhh in the neighborhood, and I expect at least two more. At least… 😉 I can’t breathe all that smoke without my chest hurting, but–I’m glad that people are having fun.

  34. I’m in the situation where I’d prefer the official displays-with plans for fire abatement and such-rather than the free enterprise idiots having fun with what they bought off the truck with only a few cracks and scrapes.

    Our local idiots were setting off their fireworks around us, and at least this year no gunshots. When the idiots do shoot guns off, it makes me want to get up on the roof with a good suppressed sniper rifle and show them real shooting.

    But, I can understand the feeling and enjoy the fun in Free America.

  35. It’s not just Americans. Look at this rendition of the Star Spangled Banner that the Ukrainian military put together for us this year. sniff

    3. Ukrainians are awesome. Just nit-picking a little, the flag at the end was hung on the wrong side.

  36. And the fireworks, both official and unofficial, are underway! Had to run outside real fast, and the air is thick with the smell of burned gunpowder.

    To paraphrase Col. Kilgore, I love the smell of gunpowder in the evening! Smells like… freedom!

    1. Driving to the big fireworks display with the windows down, one of the kids ask:
      “Mom, do you smell BBQ?!”
      “….that’s fireworks, hon.”
      “Oh. So that’s where BBQs get that smell from.”

  37. One of the things I love about the Space Coast of Florida is that it’s so green and wet here- after spending twenty years on Mars, er, Mojave, I can feel my soul plumping up. The inland horizon is a continuous shimmer of fireworks, and local folks contribute a steady train of bangs and thumps. I’m soooo glad we escaped from California last year.

  38. The free-form aerial display was still going at 2300 last night, when I fell asleep. And I notice the usual wet blankets fussed about the 1812 Overture. The rest of us (US and elsewhere) yelled, “MOAR ART’Y!” and drowned them out.

    And my hat is off to whoever ran the NYC fireworks last night. The choreography was supurb! Bravi, gentlemen and ladies.

  39. Well, after last night, I think some of my neighbors got their fireworks from Ukraine instead of from South Carolina. Somebody not far from us was cranking off some BIG mortars and they were going off at low altitude. No harm, no foul.

  40. My daughter and I went with Wee Jamie, and spent the day sunning, swimming and paddle-boarding (only the daughter unit did that last) up at the military recreation grounds on the shore of Canyon Lake. There is a nice little cove with a swimming beach, a ramp for launching boats, and covered pavilions for picnicking. We spent the whole day there, relishing the peace and quiet and the sheer normality of it all.
    Nothing could beat the 4th of July fireworks at the Tea Party celebration in 2009, though. We lay out on the grass at this wonderful destination ranch, and watched the fireworks going off directly overhead. Yesterday we were too tired and sunburnt – we went to bed early and slept through all the fireworks…

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