I'm Beginning to Understand my Father

When I was a kid, we would occasionally get firecrackers on the 4th of July. When we did, we never got the extravagant kind. Mostly we purchased things like bottle rockets and lady fingers.

As my Dad has never been a man to frequently throw away money on frivilous items, there were years we did not get any at all. In fact, I remember my sisters once lamenting one year in which they did not get any firecrackers. To avoid the embarassment of being the "only kids on the block" without them, they had taken some hard-cover books to bang on the driveway once it was dark enough where they would not be seen (yeah.. THAT is not embarassing at all is it). I guess in those days it wasn't the appealing visual show as much as it was the loud bang that was desirous.

On one holiday, my Dad took his gun out in the backyard and fired it a couple of time to appease us "bang-hungry" children.

As I got older, our firecracker purchasing grew less and less. They way I see it, my Dad figured we were getting old enough to get by without them. Besides, we should know they were essentially a waste of money.

When I became a teenager, that fact became even more apparent. The last thing I wanted to throw my hard-earned $3.35/hour on was some damn firecrackers.

Luckily, I have carried that attitude on into my adult life. Unfortunately, many in my city have not as every July 5th morning I am treated to scores of debris on my street.



These people have enough drive and strength to go and purchase the things, but they cannot bear to bend over and sweep their mess out of the street and into a garbage bag? I wish the city would ban them altogether. The mess is unbearable and the firecracker stands are unsightly.

Please don't get me wrong; I love a good professional firecracker show. But having my city look like a slum just so a small percentage of the population can "celebrate" is not worth it.