Fireworks

It's almost the Fourth, and I just read an article on Mental Floss about fireworks and how they've changed through the years.  That got me thinking about family picnics and memories from the past.

My uncle would always go out and buy about an extravagant amount of fireworks, usually several hundred dollars' worth, every Fourth of July.  He loved them.  We'd gather at my Nana's house, have a big meal that invariably involved some of PeePaw's five million watermelons (every year he had enough that we couldn't give them all away fast enough), and we'd wait for dusk to fall and the heat to taper off some.

It always started with sparklers, with writing our names in the gloaming, tracing shapes, pretending they were fairy wands, fascinated by them and just a little afraid of them as they hissed and spit for their brief moments.  Then there were the other "little" amusements, cardboard tanks that spat tiny colored balls of flame as they rolled, paper tubes that shot parachuting soldiers along with their bursts of sound and light into the sky, bottle rockets that screamed across the yard from their makeshift launching pads.  When it got really dark, we'd all be handed Roman Candles, helped to hold them as they kicked slightly.

Then it was time for the children to sit down and the "big kids" to take over.  My uncle was never happier than when he was setting up the huge fireworks and setting them off.  One after the other, they'd go up shimmering in the dark Mississippi night.  Green, gold, red, blue, fountains of color and big cannons of sound echoing over the empty pasture and the little pond.  We were a rapt audience sitting on blankets watching with murmurs and excited cries until the very last ember faded from the sky.

I miss those times.  I miss the family togetherness of them and the sense of wonder there in the darkness.  I miss watching my uncle and my dad in those moments of pure happiness as they lit the fuses and ran back laughing.  While I still love fireworks, still love to watch those flowers unfold in the heavens, something is always missing even at the most elaborate of the professional shows.  I suspect it's probably a mixture of too much watermelon and too much family.  Maybe someday I will be able to find it again in my own back yard.