Fireflowers

For yet another year I venture out in the early night, bitterly realizing how hot summers can be in Texas. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth sweating near the wafting smoke and booming echos that immediately set off a medley of car alarms. When I was a kid, it was almost a tradition to sit in the parking lot at my mother's work and watch a nice, professional show done to music that was inevitably blaring out of someone's car. It was nice, rather uncomfortable, but nice. My younger sister was born around this time, I was eight, and when the lights went off they would fascinate her. Of course, the lights were followed by a large boom that caused her to attempt to drown out the music with a high-pitched scream. Ah, the memories.

Do tell...

That tradition died after a while and I set off making my own firework shows with friends outside the city. While it was fun setting them off, I always seemed a bit disappointed with their minuscule flare and a barely audible pop. The most interesting thing about making your own firework shows was there's about a 90% chance someone is going to light something on fire. There was also the experimentation of dropping black cats down a crawdad hole to see what would happen. Then there was the usual fun of finding things to blow up or launch into the night sky. These annual events usually became rather uninteresting after around the fourth hour of waiting in the emergency room with your dumb friend. At least you get nearly infinite laughs out of the following taunting and teasing, as if anyone could ever live that down. You'd think people would learn after the first time they set themselves aflame.

I've since moved on and have joined back into the yearly routine of just waiting for the right time, going outside with a full stomach, and watching the sky light up. I've done this the past three years in a row and it's gotten better every time. You sit and talk with family while you stuff your face, wait for it to get dark, and then let the show begin. Everyone sits out in the heat in a big, tight-nit group and they let the "oohs" and "ahhs" flow like a fountain. I, on the other hand, do my best to name the type of every firework I see. I was very excited to spot every one of my favorites this year, plus a few I've never seen before. To my surprise, the 8 month-old made hardly a peep, even when it seemed all the car alarms were going off at once. The size of the larger bursts were staggering at times, made more impressive by the following ear-popping boom.

All in all, tonight's display is one of the best I've seen. I hope to remember it for a long time to come. Of course, sharing this experience with loved ones just made the fireworks seem that much brighter.