Allow me to start this little discussion with some wise words from friend-of-the-blog Tami Swearingen:
As of today fireworks are legal until the 4th, i was young once and loved fireworks. I want kids to enjoy them…but please be considerate…if you have alot of dogs around..maybe find another place to shoot them off. Even more, if you live next to a veteran, how bout knocking on the door and asking if they mind. PTSD is a very real and scary illness. Be kind, and thoughtful, and celebrate our nations birthday, safely!!
Word.
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I love my adopted hometown and home state. But I’m not gonna lie…there have been some things I have had to get used to:
- Chili and Cinnamon Rolls As A “Classic Combination”
- The Stranger Wave
- Uniquely Nebraskan Turns-Of-Phrase Including “Warsh” (wash), “stolden” (stolen), etc.
- Living in a “Pepsi town”
But there is one thing that has been more difficult than any of this–yes, even the Pepsi preference: 20 years in, and I still don’t feel comfortable with the overabundance of fireworks in my hometown this time of year.
To explain: I was born and raised in New York State. Fireworks there are illegal, unless it’s the kind of large-scale display held by some community entity (and administered by professionals). Our idea of living dangerously was to light up a few sparklers…they were (and are) legal, but in the Empire State that’s it.
This is not to say that people didn’t break the law. Of course they did! Hell, my cousins Mike and Andy tried to smuggle a pickup bed full of fireworks over the state line. (They were caught, and had to forfeit hundreds of dollars in sky candy.)
The heart of the matter–the thing that really makes me tense–is the abundance of kids setting the things off completely unsupervised. Many a walk home from Radio City has been made more stressful by a pack of “12-year-olds” (usually younger) lighting the things off in the middle of the street.
I have no problem with adults setting off fireworks. Honestly, I like that on July 4th I can watch “A Capitol Fourth” on PBS, then watch “A 1271 Hammond Lane Fourth” out my window. Heck, I have no problem with kids getting in on the action IF they’re supervised by a responsible adult.
I know I’m in the minority on this, but “kids” + “fire” just makes me anxious. And that 12-year-old cutoff doesn’t instill any confidence in me. When I was 12 years old I had incredibly lousy judgement. And the 12-year-olds of 2019 were raised on smartphones, so they have absolutely zero attention span…not the best thing for handling an open flame!