I love fireworks & the years when we can see it from our roof usually satisfy me in a primordial-fire ooh-aah way. I have memories from decades. The assortment (snakes, roman candles, sparklers: Safe for Kids) we'd buy from Rich Brothers—just driving an unfamiliar road outside the city limits was exciting. Hitchhiking home to Maine & crossing Pennsylvania during the Bicentennial, with fireworks a few miles off the highway in every little town, me sitting up high in a semi, wondering. My birthday fireworks one February on Chinese New Year. Stopping with Eileen at a giant place in South Carolina, where we separately spent the same amount of money & bought almost the exact same things. I could write the story of my life in firecrackers & bottle rockets.
They were as beautiful as ever last night but alone on my roof, I couldn't enjoy them aesthetically for thinking about tanks & camps & despair.