Weird 4th of Julies

I've had some weird and a bit odd July 4th experiences.

One year I had to drive from the Tacoma WA area down I-5 to Portland that evening because I was working a summer job and had to be at work on the 5th. I-5 along that whole stretch passes through or near a lot of municipalities as well as going right past McChord air force base & Ft Lewis just south of Olympia. During the entire almost 3 hour trip I saw every municipal fire works display and every single backyard display of illegal fireworks along the entire route. (In OR & WA anything which explodes is illegal, but vendors on the Indian reservations can sell them anyway.)

One year a friend invited me to go with him to his small beach house near Rockaway on the OR coast. We went to see the municipal display from a bluff above the beach where they were being set off. Due to an odd air inversion, all of the smoke collected in a layer below the bluff and none of the fireworks actually made it above the smoke. (It was kind of pretty anyway.) And of course lots of people in the parking lot had their own illegal fireworks.

One July 4th my then-girfriend had tickets to the professional soccer game being played in Portland's stadium. After the game, there was a very excellent fireworks display which was set off from the football field of the high school across the street. What was weird or odd about this? Well, the stadium did an EXCELLENT job of collecting and amplifying the explosions which took place right above it--it was amazingly loud.

I've also had some very nice Independence Days, too.

When I was growing up in Highland Park IL, which is North of Chicago along Lake Michigan, we always went down to the beach where you could see all the municipal displays from all the cities up and down the lake shore.

Independence Day fireworks in the Bend OR area are shot off from the top of Pilot Butte, which is the highest not actual mountain point in the area and so could be seen from all around. This made it really easy to drive to a vantage place and tune the car radio in to the station broadcasting the musical accompaniment.

During the summer between my two years of Library School at the U of Washington up in Seattle, I went down to the W Seattle shore along Elliot Bay to watch the fireworks being shot off from the top of the Space Needle.

And several times I volunteered at the Waterfront Blues festival in Portland OR, which always takes place around the 4th, and they always had nice fireworks displays.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!