our nation's birthday

i hope you all had a safe and happy fourth of july. ours was a quiet one, spent here at home watching the boston pop's 4th of july celebration on the tv. not bad as viewed on the big screen, in surround sound, with a nice glass of barefoot muscato to grease the skids. turning out the lights, left the room dark except for the glow of the tv. in just one half of one hour a reported two million dollars went up in a flash of color and kaboom. beautiful, in it's way, but still not the real deal. thinking we had forgone our local fireworks display due to an untimely empty cylinder on the gas grill delayed a decidedly non-traditional 4th of july spread. cedar planked salmon, grilled corn on the cob and sauteed squash. watermelon was our salad. a nice evening all in all. for some reason i wandered outside after the pop's program had ended only to find that our local display was still in progress. so we jumped in the frontier and made our way to a shopping center up the street for a better view. it's likely that our local display cost nowhere near two million bucks but for my taste you just can't beat watching the display live. seeing the colorful explosions, feeling the concussion, hearing the report and their echos off the building, smelling the cordite and watching the smoke drift by on the breeze, and all with the stars and stripes waving in proud attention from a flag pole in the distance makes for moment of local and national pride. patriotic music from a local radio station was timed to accentuate the magic that is a fireworks display. forget the two million dollar telecast. give me the real deal any time and every fourth of july. aio