On fireworks

When I think back on the months since Anya and Kinya arrived, one of my fondest memories is of New Years’ Day this last year. We had, two weeks earlier, moved our whole family into a very nice and kid-rich neighborhood in Katy. What we didn’t realize is that everybody in this neighborhood was serious about fireworks.

So, as soon as the sun went down, the fireworks started, on all sides. By 10:00 the air was so thick with smoke that it was hard to see the fireworks from the next subdivision half a mile away. And then at 12:00 people finally got serious.

But I don’t remember the fireworks. What I remember is walking around the neighborhood on foot, literally for hours, with two teenaged daughters who had never seen any spectacle remotely like it and who were quite transported with delight and joy. And I remember thinking back to the official fireworks displays I’d grown up with – where everybody sat and watched while the city set off one firework after another – and thinking how much more fun it was never to know from which side the next one was going to come from, and how much more of a community celebration it was for everybody to be firing off their own fireworks, but en masse. We went down one cul-de-sac and there were probably sixty people all gathered ’round the turnaround circle, talking and laughing and peering at each other through the gunpowder smoke, as they took turns firing off their rockets from the middle of the circle. Comparing that to the old celebrations where we citizens sat in lawn chairs and watched while the city officials set off fireworks – why, there’s just no comparison. That was something the government did. This was something the community was doing. And it was a completely different order of experience.

HELPFUL NOTE: What follows is a mix of rant (with complete disregard for any sense of rational proportion) and politics (first-drafted rather than argued with my customary care) and my personal approach to life (irrelevant to anybody but myself); so if you’re reading the blog for the sake of catching up on the family, you don’t need to bother with the rest. I can sum it up by this: I hate the kind of bossy person who thinks the rest of the world needs him to tell them how to live their lives and what choices they ought to make “for their own good.” The rest of the post is just dressing out that personal antipathy with colorful details and uncharitably colorful rhetoric, without taking notice of inconvenient issues such as the risk of fire in city environments or in drought-stricken country areas or whatever (though you'll note that I don't talk about cities that outlaw fireworks because of local risk factors, but about states that legislate at a statewide level, 'cause even though I'm ranting I'm not completely lost to reason).

As this guy points out, different states have very different attitudes to do-it-yourself fireworks. It is typical of California that the government would not trust its citizens to take part in such a dangerous and uncontrolled activity; it is typical of Texas and of Tennessee that you would have a sort of almost-anything-goes, laissez-faire approach. I know people who would be horrified by the same neighborhood-wide chaos that so delighted me and my girls, and I know what they would say: “But do you really think your having a good time on the Fourth of July is worth somebody else’s life? People die from fireworks. And having a little temporary fun is not worth people dying – or do you think your good time is worth somebody else’s death?”

To which my answer is, “You bet your sweet sit-me-down-upon – and what’s more, you think so too, or else, given the number of people who die in traffic accidents each year, you would never put your kids in the car and drive to Schlitterbahn.”

The thing is, a life without joy is not a life at all. Look, if you don’t like free-climbing because it’s dangerous and people die, then you don’t have to free-climb. I stopped free-climbing myself once I had kids who could be fatherless and a wife to be widowed, because the risk-reward ratio shifted into the red. But still, lots of the things that make life worth living, can only be obtained by people who are willing to accept the risk that they could get killed. Indeed, you can’t get rid of all risk no matter what you do – you can’t even drive to the local grocery store without taking the chance of getting T-boned by somebody who runs a red light. To live your life under the constant fear of death, is no way to live; indeed, it is hardly an existence worthy to be dignified by the term “life” at all.

The people who want to impose California-style restrictions here in Texas – what they want to do is steal away from my girls that transport of delight that they felt for hours on New Years’ and that they’ll experience again tonight, so that my girls won’t be at risk of getting hurt. And you know what? My girls might get hurt tonight, and so might I. But we will take reasonable precautions so that we get the joy with no unnecessary risk – that is, no risk that we could avoid without cutting down dramatically on the joy and the sense of communal celebration. And the rest of the risk, we will accept. Because we are alive and we intend to live our life to the full, and hiding in a corner impoverishing one’s life so that its duration will be maximised at whatever cost to its intensity – if that’s your choice, I congratulate you, but it isn’t ours.

Of course, not everybody enjoys fireworks enough to make it worth the risk to them, and to those people I would very cheerfully say, “Hey, don’t do the fireworks thing; enjoy a rousing game of Scrabble instead if that’s what floats it.” But if you’re going to say to me, “Fireworks are too dangerous for my taste; so I’m not going to let you do it either and I’ll have the police come with guns and arrest you if you try,” I say simply, “Up yours, babe; I live in Texas, and we Texans are still a free people – and by the way: Happy Independence Day, you King George wannabe, you.”