Cleveland Fireworks

Being bred a Hoosier, 4th of July fire­works in Indi­ana typ­i­cal­ly aren’t any­thing all that impres­sive. Most of the cool ones are ille­gal, so my child­hood was filled with those lit­tle snap­py bug­gers and those grow­ing snake thingys, with a wimpy foun­tain thrown in now and then. As I grew old­er, my uncle and cousin would pur­chase some of the mor­tar-like job­bies and 4th of July cel­e­bra­tions perked up a bit over home­made ice cream. Cleve­land fire­works on the oth­er hand…

Last night I was sit­ting on my back porch, watch­ing fire­works burst and pop over they Cuya­hoga Riv­er val­ley. I was sur­round­ed by them and it was amaz­ing. The fire­works nitre-smell float­ed over from my neigh­bors who were chuck­ing rock­ets into the air all crazy-like, Slav­ic vil­lage was hav­ing a grand old time…it was like noth­ing I’d ever seen before. And so, while I might appear to have a bit more hay in my hair than usu­al, I’m ter­ri­bly thank­ful to have been wit­ness to the show last evening, and for a lit­tle moment, refeel­ing that child­like glow of won­der at mar­vel­lous fire­crack­ery.