One of my favorite childhood memories is watching fireworks. Woodstock’s City Park was only about 7 blocks away, but we packed up the station wagon and headed in to park with the rest of the 12,000 residents of the town—4 hours early—to claim our bit of turf with a blanket. The best summers, though, were the ones spent watching the explosions from our rooftop.
Now in Bloomington, we’ve taken to a free and worry-free commute to the front yard.
Because Amy plays in the Community Band, the Picnic with the Pops is a Makice tradition, and we have managed to stay long enough to see some fireworks there. Unfortunately, not only is it usually a looooooong ordeal to get kids (and dad) from the setup to the pretty sky show, the Pops have progressively restricted where the boys can romp. Not so much fun as work.
We tried—once—to make the trip to Memorial Stadium to see the annual 4th of July show up close. Carter, then 4 and the proud owner of a little baby brother, demanded we get closer and closer and closer to where the fireworks would be shot off. We had just made our way through the crowd past Assembly Hall when the first rocket fired. One boom later, and Carter was bolting in the other direction. We couldn’t get far away fast enough. Never went back.
I loved the view from atop our porch rooftop as a kid. There were some trees in the way, and we always missed whatever was happening on the ground show, but it was free and easy to get to bed later. (Five year olds talk big, but by the grand finale I was lucky to still have my eyes open.) My dad was more relaxed about it all, too, since he didn’t have to worry about entrance fees, parking, and publicly keeping his two kids in check for a full evening. All he had to worry about was one of them sliding off the shingles.
I’m not letting Carter near the roof, but no need. We look northwest over University Elementary from ground level, waiting for the sky to explode.
Fireworks 2008, Part I (“Chameleon” by Rebirth Brass Band)
Fireworks 2008, Part II (“Captain Jack” by Billy Joel)
2 replies on “Boom. Boom.”
Thanks for the video, Kevin. We knew our little one would be a bit skittish, but we went with a couple that had a 3-year old. Stayed atop the business school garage thinking that it would be far enough away that he would enjoy it. Of course, there were some folks shooting off some rather large-ish fireworks from the roof, too, so that canned the plans. Too bad.
Wow. Glad I checked the Akismet on a whim. It is rare when real comments get sucked into that bit of collective wisdom, so I don’t do it often enough. Fortunately, I found your comments before they expired.
You picked a good spot. Next year, maybe we should have a tweet-up in our front yard on the 4th.