A Day Marked by Illuminations and Bonfires

My return to the Northwest has been accompanied by a roaring display of fireworks. Mostly aural, although I saw some larger ones here and there coming down from SeaTac. Here in the hood, the noise is constant popping and and banging. It's been going on pretty much steadily in the hour since I arrived with no apparent end. I saw smoke and smelled cordite as I turned in the driveway. Maggie and I spent July 4, 2003 in Portland, Oregon and heard much the same cacophony. It actually began on the 3rd there.

The randomness in sound and location--it's all around me--gives it the sense of a moving firefight with call and response from all sides, back and forth. A string of Black Cats makes a fair machine gun burst. A single pop is a sniper. Distant pops and rumbles make the sound pervasive--you could walk for hours and not get out of it. It could be the light weapons soundtrack to a major battle.

July 4, 1973 is the birthday of my first dog, Toby, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Toby lived and traveled with me for more than 15 years.

July 4, 1776 is more or less the day that the Continental Congress agreed to one of the finest statements of human rights ever proclaimed.

July 4, 2008 is a day when I regret to say that my government no longer honors the stirring ideals of The Fourth of July.