The last big performance of Riverbend winds down as the crowd grows in anticipation of the fireworks

If every fireworks display were the likes of the Riverbend Fireworks, I think there wouldn’t be a shortage of explosives worldwide.  That could be a good thing–fireworks are probably among the more peaceful things we do with explosives.  Although I suppose there are a lot of people who would disagree that that’s the best use of explosives–a few of my friends are extremely grateful for the explosives used in their airbags, for example.

Regardless, fireworks always feel nostalgic to me.  I don’t know why–fireworks displays are so much more sophisticated and reliable than they ever were when I was a kid.  I think I couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 years old when I started anticipating the success or failure of the 4th of July Fireworks based on the weather.  Rain the week before the big display was a disaster.  Perhaps “the fireworks got wet” was really just a euphemism adults used to explain away all the “duds” that would fail to go off with little more than a “ffftttzzz” and maybe a spark.  But the children in my neighborhood grew up terrifies of rain right before fireworks because we were sure there would be lots of duds.

I remember fireworks taking an hour or more from start to finish.  I remember being blown away by the finale when a dozen or more fireworks blossomed in the sky simultaneously.  I remember the show leading up to the finale consisting pretty much of one, maybe two, fireworks going off at the same time or in close sequence.  I remember lots of time between fireworks when the sky was simply empty.  I remember the first time I ever saw a fireworks display that had been timed and choreographed with music.  It was in the 1980’s.  They played Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American” as part of the montage.  I can’t remember being to a fireworks display set to music without hearing Lee ever since.  In fact, I heard it again tonight.  That guy must make millions just on fireworks background music.

Things I don’t remember from the suburban fireworks display my family attended every 4th of July, sharing a blanket in the grass of a local park, include adult men without shirts on, extraordinary traffic jams, closed roads, cops with lights flashing everywhere, people packed like sardines into all available open spaces and fighting over the high spots.

Of course, the suburb that sponsored the fireworks from my childhood has all of 10,000 people living in it.  While Chattanooga may not be a big city, it’s nearly 20 times the size of that.  So I guess it’s unfair to compare the sweet innocence of the suburb I grew up in  to the issues that arise when you take a very large number of people and put them in a very small space.

The fireworks have been over for at least 45 minute now.  But sirens keep going by outside.  Hopefully it will settle down soon.