AMERICA, HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! The Fourth of July and Fireworks. A Few Personal Fireworks Memories of My Own. Plus, Fireworks in America versus China. Whatever You Do In Life, Make a Few Memories with Fireworks. By: Mr. George D. Patnoe., Jr! July 4th, 2018.

AMERICA, HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

 The Fourth of July and Fireworks.

 A Few Personal Fireworks Memories of My Own.

 Plus, Fireworks in America versus China.

 Whatever You Do In Life, Make a Few Memories with Fireworks.


 By: Mr. George D. Patnoe., Jr!

 July 4th, 2018.


 AMERICA, HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

“Independence Day, also referred to as the Fourth of July or July Fourth, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Continental Congress declared that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, and were no longer part of the British Empire.[1] The Congress actually voted to declare independence two days earlier, on July 2.[1]

Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, and political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the National Day of the United States.”  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Maybe every America citizen who thinks about the Fourth of July in America thinks about fireworks.  American citizens either think about going to the fireworks in their own towns and cities, and even if they do not go to the fireworks in their towns and cities, there are always fireworks on the side streets somewhere, legal or illegal.  Of course, there are always those firework booths in store and mall parking lots that sell fireworks to anyone who would like to purchase fireworks so they can have some fun and enjoy the Fourth of July celebration in their backyard or on their streets, legal or not legal.  Of course, the truth is that America is really uptight about having its citizens displaying fireworks on the Fourth of July, or Independence Day.  But in reality, America’s so-called freedoms are becoming less and less, not more and more.

Some people get old enough so that they have very clear and precision memories of when they watched fireworks.  I know I have memories of very long ago, and not so long ago.  I am writing about three different firworks memories that have happened to me during my lifetime.  The first two firework experiences that happened to me were in America.  The third firework experience I will write about happened to me was in China.  Of course I have more than three memories of fireworks, but I only need three in this story.

The three memories I want to write about happened during three different stages of my life.  The first being when I was very young with my parents and brothers and sisters  in Bloomfield, Connecticut.  The second was in Manhattan, New York, USA., while standing on the edge of the ocean at Battery Park, Manhattan with my sister Judy.  And third was when I was in visiting JiangXi China around the year 20108 during the Chinese New Year.  Yes, the Chinese still use fireworks to celebrate their holidays too.  And that is something you never forget, even if you want to forget them.


Fireworks in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

So there we were, as a family, me and my parents and brothers and sisters sitting on a High School curvy grassy field and the weather was so nice too.  A clear night and the fireworks were not like they are today, but they were good enough for kids and grownups alike.  We drove there in a station wagon, which was a long car that was shorter, but longer than today’s SUVs,.  (Sport utility vehicle.)  But it served the same functions because it had the front and back seats and it also had the back area to store stuff in or it could be used to sit one or two more people.  The trip to the High School field to watch the yearly Fourth of July fireworks was a yearly thing for a while until something happened one year that I will never forget.

What started off as a clear night with the normal fireworks blasting into the sky with the bright stars behind the fireworks ended up with quickly the approaching massive, dark and think clouds in the night darkness just after the fireworks had finished.  The place was packed like sardines and it was crowded like it is normally on any firework night celebration.  I remembered it like it happened yesterday because it is stuck inside my mind.  I had looked up at the sky and then I looked at my dad who was staring down at me for a second.  He looked at my mother and he said to her, “Honey, I am going to get the car.”

So my dad runs off, leaving the rest of us behind and I am thinking to myself, ‘Why is he going to get the car without us?’  So we started to walk and I was thinking to myself, ‘I guess he is going to bring the car closer to us on the street.  So we are going to walk to the street and meet him there.’  I looked up at the dark clouds and the rain was beginning to drop down on the crowd of people who were all knowing that they were going to get soaking wet in a matter of minutes.  I remember turning my head to see the station wagon heading downward towards us, dividing the crowd of people in half like Mose separating the Red Sea in the Bible story.

So, the crowd was splitting up in two sides like the water in the red sea for Moses in the Bible Story.  It was as funny as heck and the looks on people’s face’s were a mixed set of facial expressions.  But we all got into the station wagon and my dad drove us off the wet green grass and off to home we went, after we drove off the now wet grassy High School field.  What is the point of this story you may ask yourself.  The point of this story is that it was at that moment that I knew that my dad would do anything to protect his family, his wife and kids from danger, even if that danger was only the wet rain after the Fourth of July fireworks.

Another point of this remembrance is that even back in my old days, fireworks were not really allowed on the streets, only in the High School field.  More on that point later.


Fireworks in Battery Park, Manhattan, New York City, New York. USA.

Me and my nine year younger sister Judy were living in Long Island, New York.  She was a stock broker and/or assistant to a bigger stock broker depending on the moment in her career.  Now she is a lawyer, but we will not hold that against her.  Anyway, she asked me if I wanted to go watch the fireworks in Manhattan and I said yes.  Now what the reader must understand that in New York City, when crowds get together for any holiday, for the Thanksgiving Parade, for the New Years dropping of the New Year’s Ball, and the Fourth of July for fireworks, there are a lot of people who are traveling to New City and returning home from New City.  It is very busy!

But Manhattan is only so big and it is surrounded by water too.  So the fireworks in Manhattan are basically taking place on huge water barges (‘A long flat-bottomed boat for carrying freight, typically on canals and rivers, either by its own power or towed by another boat.’)  The fireworks are lit off the water barges and rocketed high into the sky.  And with so many water barges up and down the water ways, the whole night sky is lit up with fireworks, so much so that you really can not see the stars if you are looking at the fireworks from below, unlike the fireworks in smaller towns and cities like Bloomfield Conn, or even in San Francisco, California.  Plus, they lasted a long time.  Just on and on and on with the fireworks, until the grand finale or climax.

So there we were standing, so close to the water’s edge, hanging onto the steel or metal guardrails that stopped people from falling into the water as we watched Manhattan’s fireworks.  It was quite a show indeed.  So many wide angle bursts of fireworks and mixing up with each other so there was no way you were ever going to forget them, even if you tried.  And when it was all over, everyone scattered away from Battery Park just like they scattered away from the High School field in Bloomfield, Connecticut.  And again, America’s citizens were not usually allowed to set off fireworks on the streets or backyards.  Hum!

As a side remark, on more than one occasion my sister Judy also invited me to the World Trade Center’s Windows on the World restaurant to eat and have wine.  At the time, it was very nice to sit down on top of the world, looking down onto the city of Manhattan while we were eating food and drinking wine.  I did not really think to much of the food and wine, but sitting there was really cool.  It was a special place, almost a semi-mystical place to relax and forget about the whole world for a hour or two while you could down at the city of Manhattan.  In truth, those were special moments for lots of reasons, but mainly I was one of the lucky people in the world who got to wine and dine on top of the World Trade Center Tower before it was destroyed on 911.

I now wish that I could have watched Manhattan’s fireworks from the World Trade Center’s Windows on the World restaurant.  But maybe that would have meant looking down at the fireworks instead of looking up at the fireworks while standing on the street.  Looking up at the fireworks is probably more normal because fireworks are like the stars, always up there, away from earthly things.


Fireworks in Jiangxi China.

For some seemingly silly reason, although I did not realize and know that I was going to experience the fireworks during a Chinese New Year’s celebration.  I should have consciously realized that I was going to experience a Chinese New Year’s celebration because I had been around them in America, although not with the fireworks.

It was a funny thing the last time I visited China, during the year 2011.  The last time I had arrived in the airport in Guangzhou City in China, ‘a little ways away from Hong Kong,’ the airport reminded me of an overlarge shack, simple building with simple past port soldiers who allowed even Americans into China.  Arriving in China in 2011, the newly built airport reminded me of San Francisco’s airport, modern with style.  I was then traveling in a new BMW on newly built highways with, and get this, no other cars on either side of the newly built highways.

“Jiangxi, a southeast Chinese province, is defined by its pastoral landscapes of rice paddies, rivers and mountains. Centered on the Gan River valley, historically it's been on major north-south trade routes. In the northwest, Jingdezhen has been a center of porcelain-making for over 1,000 years. Today the city has many pottery studios and shops, several ceramic museums, and the remains of a Ming-era imperial kiln.”  Google.

So we traveled up to Jiangxi China from Guangzhou China by airplane and then by car.  To make a long story short regarding the fireworks for the Chinese New Year, I was staying on the eight story of a condo building and when the Chinese fireworks started in Jiangxi China, and it was not like the fireworks in Bloomfield, Conn, or in Manhattan, where fireworks were blasted into the sky in one place, like on the edge of water, although that does happen in other parts of China.  Instead of the fireworks being in only one place to watch them, like in America, the fireworks in Jiangxi China were set off by anyone and seemingly everyone.  In other words, it was an every citizen celebration, in a matter of speaking, where the people could take part in the fireworks, not just watch the fireworks being blasted into the air and sky by the professionals.

So when the fireworks started in Jiangxi China, they were everywhere: on the tops of buildings, on every street, in the hallways of buildings, and probably places I could not see nor knew about.  There was so much smoke and noise from the fireworks that I felt like I was in a scene in a war movie.  No joke!  It lasted for two to three hours, maybe more, but everyone was having fun, I am guessing here.  That kind of nationalistic fun celebrating would never happen in America because for one, there are so many laws stopping American citizens from celebrating anything.  And second, America is becoming a police state just like in the time of Hitler and even as it is becoming a police state in China, slowly but surely.  Cameras and cops with guns are everywhere equals a police state!  Pure and simple here, folks.

The point here I think is this.  Probably none of the citizens in Jiangxi China had ever experienced America’s fireworks the way I have for so many years.  And there I was in person experiencing China’s fireworks during their New Year celebration.  It was not really great and fun for me because their fireworks were not really as good or nice up in the sky fireworks as America’s fireworks.  Of course it was a small town and not a huge big city.  But, instead, their fireworks were more like a real celebration for the and by the people and citizens of Jiangxi.  Unlike in America, everyone could have some fun setting off some fireworks for fun.  Of course the real reasons people in America are not allowed to set off their own fireworks is so people do not burn down their own houses and blow up their fingers.

The fireworks in Jiangxi China would never happen on their scale in America.  Meaning, America’s citizens are not allowed to actually have fun celebrating their Fourth of July by setting off fireworks in their backyard or on the side streets of America during America’s Independence Day Celebration of Freedom, the way the people and citizens of Jiangxi China are allowed to celebrate their Chinese New Year.  There was actually more freedom and fun in communist China for their people and citizens of Jiangxi China to celebrate their holiday than there is in America where America’s freedom (s) are being taken away and even the word freedom is becoming to a have less and less magical ring to the word.

But in a way, all of these remarks may simply be technicalities because in the end, maybe it does not matter if a nation’s or a countries’ people and citizens are allowed to set off fireworks in their backyard and on the side streets.  Maybe the point should be American citizens can still read any book they want without going to a prison and American citizens can still talk about and say anything about their past and current elected president without fear of going to prison.  And America’s people and citizens can still practice their own misguided religions too.  Etc. Etc. Etc.

On the other hand maybe the real point of this story and/or essay is this.  All around world and globe, countries celebrate their holidays with fireworks, especially during their New Years celebrations and their own nationalistic holidays.  But more importantly, all around the world and globe, young and innocent boys and girls, whether they live in America or China or whatever nation or country they live in, get to experience the fun and joy of fireworks, so when they all grow old, they will have some good memories to live with as they grow old, and before they die too!