Fireworks and Fear

I probably should have written this last night but tried to stay on track and write what I should have written the night before that. In other words, I’m living in the past in more than one way.

Last night Anjee and I went to the Finally Fireworks, Gaithersburg’s Fourth of July celebration. Yes, that should have happened on July 4th but it didn’t. On June 30th we were hit by a derecho and with so much clean-up needed, it was decided to postpone the event. Want to see a photo of the culprit?

At any rate, last night we parked at Grace Church and then traipsed across the street — with assistance from the friendly G-burg traffic cops — and down Chestnut to the Fairgrounds. I hated the walk: my knee protested the entire time. However, we finally found ourselves behind the grandstand where quite a few people had set up chairs facing in the same direction. We decided this would do, spread out our blanket, and settled in to reading, drinking Cherry Coke, and hoping that the children chasing each other wouldn’t trample us. When the sky finally darkened, we were treated to a truly spectacular display.

There’s nothing like a good fireworks show. Yes, the shows at Epcot are riveting, but those are primarily laser shows. I mean fireworks, pure and simple, with the risk of failure (Disney is polished enough that they wouldn’t allow a failure) and the magic of familiar surroundings. This was a great show, with the muted cannon sound of the launchers, the burst of color, the sizzle of falling sparks. It seemed to go on forever, crescendoing into a tumult of sound and color. Anjee insisted that though this was a good show but that the best ones she had seen were in Pittsburgh — which was only natural to her since “that’s where they come from.”

I’m not so sure about that, about Pittsburgh as the source of fireworks. When we lived in Juniata County, in the middle of the state, in the middle of nowhere, our neighbor would take an annual trek west — to Ohio — to buy fireworks to set off for his family. At that time, there were no fireworks in Pennsylvania except professional displays and sparklers.

Of course, now all of that has changed. In Maryland you still can’t buy fireworks and it’s illegal to set them off (at least as far as I know) but as soon as you cross the PA border you encounter signs for a huge store.

And before major summer holidays, just about every shopping center or vacant lot has one of these:

But not in Maryland. So instead we rely on the professional display. I could go into the District and see the big display, the one on the National Mall, but I’m not into crowds and that one is well beyond my tolerance level.

When I was a kid, we went to Harrisburg to see fireworks. It was a family affair (most things were at that time) and we always viewed from the same place: the waterfront. Just off Front Street, sitting on the steps (though the grown-ups used blankets or lawn chairs) next to the Susquehanna River.

Of course, there was plenty of waiting time. We had to get there early to grab a spot because this was something that everyone came to see. But of course, that meant that I had to be entertained. Face it, I was not the type to just sit there while the adults engaged in polite conversation. Yes, I’d take a book with me but to sit and read when anticipating something this exciting, when anticipating lights and noise and magic? (And I’m still that way — Anjee read while we were waiting last night, while I may have covered two paragraphs.)

So the answer to entertaining me? Scare the crap out of me, of course. Remember the story about Gettysburg and the picnic? The battleground trips were planned to keep the kids occupied while the food was cooking, and there I had my scare when we climbed the tower. For the fireworks, we walked on the bridge.

The good old Walnut Street bridge. It was an open bridge, surfaced in metal grating, meaning that as I walked, if I looked down — and of course I looked down — I could see far beneath, straight down to the river. The water didn’t bother me, not at all. I loved to swim, enjoyed boating. But heights? Can we say terrified? I’d hold the hand of one of the grown-ups escorting me and try to look straight ahead, try to be brave, but couldn’t help looking down, clutching that hand with a death grip and hoping that it would soon be over. And at that time, it wasn’t just pedestrians on the bridge. Oh no: we were on a walkway at the side of the bridge, metal railings to each side of us, metal grate beneath us, and just the other side of one of those railings were cars, traversing back and forth, shaking and vibrating the already frightening structure. After the floods accompanying Hurricane Agnes in 1972, the bridge was closed, strengthened, and reopened for pedestrians only. Later — 1999? — ice damaged the bridge even more and it now only goes as far as City Island, not to the west shore of the river.

Did we walk to the island or the entire way across the bridge? I don’t really know. As I said, I was terrified.

But afterward there were fireworks. And that made it all worthwhile.