Fireworks - Past and Present

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to watch the fireworks displays and have wonderful memories of fireworks events. One September I was in Merida, Yucatan at the time of Mexico’s independence holiday. They held a fabulous display and the sky was lit up with pictures of people (maybe dead presidents?) and spectacular colors. 
Many years ago when I was working as a counselor at a summer camp, the campers had gone home over the 4^th of July holiday and there were just a few counselors left at camp.  We went out in the canoes to the middle of Lake Springfield and watched the fireworks show from our boats surrounded by water and the night sky.
As a child, my family had a rustic cabin on a lake where we spent vacations and long weekends. There were always many other families at the lake when we were. Men went out fishing in rowboats with motors early in the morning, children stayed in bathing suits all day, and mothers made everyone stay out of the lake for an hour after eating.  In the evenings, fathers smoked cigarettes as they shot off fireworks from the beach, children played with sparklers as they maintained an arm’s distance from other children with sparklers and kept both feet in the same place, while mothers sat in lawn chairs and yelled at everyone to be careful.

Getting back to the present – Our town’s summer festival ended with a fireworks show.  Ted and I parked the car near our garden space at the edge of town and carried our folding chairs down a little dirt road between two rice fields to watch the show. We have such a good life.