Day 8: A Happy Memory

For today's prompt, I'm choosing a seasonal memory - the Big Bang Boom 4th of July celebrations!  I grew up in a small town of about 20,000 people in northeast Nebraska.  Small Midwestern towns often do 4th of July celebrations in a big way.  There's an all day festival with bands and food and maybe mud volleyball that was watered down by a firetruck.  There are people shooting off all manner of fireworks at all hours of the day.  (I remember my brother and his friend putting on garden gloves and goggles and having a bottle rocket war.)  

And then the big highlight of the day is the professional fireworks show at night, which the whole town attends.  (And all the neighboring townsfolk  - believe it or not, we were the "hub" town in that area, with the mall and the movie theaters and the bowling alley - most towns in rural Nebraska are under a thousand, separated by miles of farmland in between.)  The fireworks show takes place over Skyview Lake, and we happened to live right across the street, so my parents often invited people over to watch with us.  

One year, they went all out and hired a band to play in their backyard.  I have the happiest memory of hanging around with my friends at this party, on a high of summer and grilled hamburgers and fireworks all day, and watching my musical, extroverted dad step in with the band for a few songs as the singer.  Then, as the sun went down, everyone getting blankets and lawn chairs turned toward the lake, and turning up the radio so we could hear the music that went along with the show.  Everyone "oohed" and "aahed" as the sky lit up, and held their breaths through the spectacular grand finale.   

I was not big on fireworks as a kid.  I was not one who would save up hundreds of dollars, buy up a whole stand, and blow up everything in sight all through the month of June.  I was more the type questioning (mostly in my head) spending that much dough on things that literally blow up in seconds when there are starving people in Africa - the fun one at the party!  

But now that I live in the west, where fireworks are much more limited and regulated due to the wildfire danger, I appreciate what a joy fireworks bring to a 4th of July celebration - both the driveway kind and the professional show kind.  And now that I'm older, I realize how much we all need these moments of celebration and joy.  I'm grateful that I got to grow up with a Big Bang Boom of a 4th of July, and grateful that we often get to return to Nebraska in July to do Independence Day Midwest style.