Monday, July 07, 2008

4th of July Weekend

My parents live in Santa Ana, last refuge of the "safe and sane" fireworks. Growing up, we bought fireworks, but never to the quantity that I wished. A couple of years ago, my brother was in town for the 4th and we were like kids in a candyfirework shop. This year, we bought a large (but not quite "block party" size) box of pyrotechnics. The kids loved the little items: ground bloom flowers, sparklers, worms, lightning bugs, etc. It gives a parent great satisfaction to teach their brood how to start the fuse of an explosive device without losing a finger or hand. As we set off our fireworks, the rest of the neighborhood joined in. There were multitudes of air-burst rockets, like mini-Disneyland fireworks. I imagine they were purchased in Tijuana given the area's large Mexican population. In any case, I was very jealous; the bottle rockets we had as kids were pathetic compared to the new ones.

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