…I’d like to congratulate you for celebrating another 4th of July here in the USA without singeing off your own eyebrows, along with the left side of your face, the neighbor’s cat, and those three bushes that line the front walkway!  By following the safety instructions that were included with your completely legal, professionally distributed fireworks, you’ve made yourself a fine example to younger, more impressionable generations who will in years to come exhibit a similar display of precaution and common sense when observing the independence of their nation with their own friends and family.

As for the rest of you … well, what can I say?!  While I’d like to think that this is the first time your behind has gotten up close and personal with the business end of a bottle rocket, something tells me that at this point you’re on a first name basis with the fine men and women of your local emergency room, perhaps already having paid a visit or two this year for insisting on that overly-aggressive donkey for the kid’s birthday party or even simply mistaking Easter grass for another kind of grass while the good little boys and girls were out hunting for the eggs that you forgot to hide.  But never fear, for although your midnight ER runs may be mildly inconvenient because they always seem to tear you away at the height of the party, I’ve got a feeling that a guy by the name of Darwin will be catching up with you sooner or later…

Boy, this is the time of year when we really see society’s premiere idiots come out of the woodwork, now isn’t it, folks?  I guess there must be something about the prospect of not only lighting things on fire, but lighting things on fire that fly that sparks the idiot gene into action.  I mean, don’t get me wrong – I like fireworks just as much as the next guy, however my enjoyment comes more from the glorious spectacle when they burst overhead, as opposed to the drunken panic when you see one screaming towards your car.

Of course, here in the state of Florida we really like our fireworks, to the point where it’s not unexpected to see folks celebrating the 4th of July, in all of its fiery glory, not only a week or so early, but well into August, as well!  And even then, it’s not that the nightly neighborhood fire hazard actually stops in August – they just switch over to celebrating Christmas instead of the 4th at that point.  It’s kind of like a flammable version of how Wal-Mart swaps out its seasonal merchandise – there’s never not a reason to celebrate the savings, or in this case, celebrate one’s inevitable next trip to the emergency room!

It’s definitely something that’s taken a bit of getting used to … rockets bursting outside your window on any random Tuesday night during the spring, summer, or fall – I guess it’s just a fanaticism that I never saw nearly that much growing up in Northern Michigan.  Back in my day, we never had the massive bursts that shoot 30-feet up in the air in our neighborhood displays.  Maybe at the big, “official” town show over the lake, but the best our neighborhoods had were sparklers, those lousy tanks that shot a couple of stray sparks before catching on fire themselves, and maybe your classic smoky snake or two that just left a pile of snake-like ashes that were a pain in the ass to scrub off the sidewalk the next day.  We were limited to whatever was in that bundle you could pick up at the grocery store – nothing that cleared trees and struck terror into the hearts of family pets, that’s for sure – but for the most part, we were fine with it!  We left the big guns to the “professionals” who always seemed to have the fire department standing by, and at the end of the night I think there was something to be said for the evening passing without an ambulance whipping down the street or someone threatening to take their neighbor to small claims court over the burnt patch in their lawn the size of what used to be their golf cart…

But if you’ll excuse me, I think I just heard a bottle rocket land dangerously close to my front door, so as much as I’d like to stay and reminisce about a place in time with a little less to offer in the fire hazards department, I think for the sake of explosions I’d better get my guard up.  At least they have to sleep sometime, though … right?!