Just got back from fireworks observation part two. Last night we walked the one block to the country club and watched over the fence as they set off their fireworks. Tonight were the town fireworks, which are usually a disappointment compared to the fireworks dreamed up by the struggling but still fairly hoity-toity country club and in the past my parents and I have gone with Subcontinent and her parents to sit with thousands of other people, sweltering and under attack by mosquitos, to listen to martial music and watch these fireworks. When we're in the country at all, that is, and often we're not.
Today was hot and I've been coming down with a cold for about three days, but I must have still wanted to see more fireworks deep down in my heart because before I could fathom why I was getting in touch with StOlafBoy to see if he had plans. Seeing the fireworks on my own terms, in their new location by the community college, I thought, might be a good way to create new memories of the town display.
We had been warned about traffic and parking, and as we drove to the community college we started to see people packed into parking lots with folding chairs between their cars, but StOlafBoy and I were quite crafty and drove way out into the countryside, found a series of house-less streets where they had once planned on building a hospital complex and where StOlafBoy sometimes runs, parked, sprayed on bug spray, and sat down on a blanket to watch the sky and wait. Only about two other groups of people had had the same idea, and they were about 50 yards away in either direction. The highway was several hundred yards away and we could both see the lights and hear the cars, but once the fireworks started (about five minutes after we showed up) it barely registered.
The town fireworks still weren't as good as the country club ones (although minus the martial music, they were improved), but the best thing about the night was that we had an unobstructed 360 degree view of other firework displays (legal and illegal) in the neighboring towns and farms. So we rotated around and around and pointed out particularly good ones to each other. There was a breeze and the temperature was perfect and calming, and the bugs stayed well away. And we could also see the big dipper. And mysterious flashes and intermittent red glowing coming from behind a cluster of trees (alien landing? Iron Giant preparation? more fireworks?). And, most mysteriously of all, an apparently private plane that circled above for the entire thing and disappeared shortly before I said I had to get home (fighting a cold off, remember) around eleven.
It was a great night, largely because this is a guy it would have hurt my heart to spend so much dramatically-lit time around as little as a year ago. Now we can sit and watch fireworks in the darkness and look up at the stars and chat about possible futures like any other pair of friends would. I wouldn't have imagined this for myself sophomore year of high school. I wouldn't have it any other way.