I absolutely love to watch fireworks. Last Fourth of July I watched them from my apartment window. At University I went to watch the start of year fireworks every year. I've photographed them for newspapers and have watched them go off over the lake a number of times. In fact I just watched some while visiting my grandpa over Father’s Day weekend this year.
This love of fireworks has not always been the case. Like most small children I was not a fan of fireworks, mainly because they were loud and I did not quite understand how they worked. On the Fourth of July, when I was two, I watched the fireworks with a tiny child’s lawn chair over my head; my mother says that I told them at the time that the chair was to protect my hair from catching on fire from the fireworks.
As I got a little bit older I started being less afraid of fireworks for a few years. By less afraid I mean that I was OK with sparklers and fireworks that were set off far away from where I was watching them from.
One Fourth of July when I was probably seven, I was excited about the sparkler cake that we had for a birthday that same day. In full honesty I was a bit disappointed when it was not an actual cake, but it was still pretty cool.
Fireworks were less bad for me until the next Fourth of July when I was eight. That year one of Grandpa’s buddies who will not be named, you know who are, came over to set off fireworks from the deck while we were on the deck. He brought a Mad Dog firework that lasted forever; and let me tell you, you do not want to share a deck space with one of those things.
After that I was scared of fireworks again for a one to three of the next couple of years and proceeded to spend the next couple Fourth of July fireworks in the basement because I was now more afraid of the fireworks then I was of the furnace. I was also afraid of Grandpa’s buddy after that because of the Mad Dog firework.
Thankfully for me and my family, who like to go to fireworks, I am no longer afraid of fireworks unless they are set off on the deck while I am on it.
