by Adam S. Kibbe
Normally you couldn’t pay me to enter an area of this level of boundary-oblivious human density, but grandchildren must be free to enjoy these spectacles, and free of the curse of curmudgeonry. Last time Ivan hid under a blanket — this time he enjoyed it almost as much as his mayhemphilic younger brother, Avery.
rakkity
Great shots of the fireworks! Did you use a tripod, Adam?
Your celebration there reminds me of Bowie, MD’s. Here in the arid west, where a spark can cause a prairie fire, fireworks are carefully constrained to stadiums or the middle of reservoirs. (I was surprised to learn that even the possession of fireworks is banned here!)
The rakkity kids in MD got rained out at the Univ MD (Patrick) and deluged in DC (Katie). DC’s celebration persevered in spite of the deluge, so Katie got to see the rain-dimmed fireworks, but Patrick just got to see personal firework shows across the DC line. (DC bans guns, but not rockets, cherry bombs or M-80s!)
adam
No tripod — just braced in my lap … The hardest part was gauging the length of exposure — a little too long and it was just a big ball of brightness.
Probably because of fire concerns, they set up in an old quarry abutting the playing fields of this large, open, public park. Beside which is a horseshoe-mound-ringed amphitheater — we were on the “left-field” summit, from whence we had a decent view of the stage and had but to pivot 180 in place to have supremo ringside fireworks seats. Crowded, but nice.
We once watched the Boston Esplanade spectacle in the rain — between fog and trapped smoke, not the best …
smiling
That last shot looks like one of Rakkity’s Supernovas…did you apply some of his noise reduction techniques?
We watched ours this year from the parking lot of a motel on the waterfront at Boothbay Harbor ME–only 1/50th of the numnber of boundaryless watchers there, Adam. Linda’s mother Polly really takes watching the fireworks seriously.
I still think the best ‘works’ are the ones shot off in one’s own front ytard, as we used to do in Mex City in the 50’s.
Matt, tell about Boston’s extraordinary music-sync’d display!
rakkity
I agree, Dan. The best shots we ever saw were on Spoon’s Pond in Gilsum Woods (sort of our front yard). The lot association members got together and fired rockets off from the pier for a couple of hours. There’s nothing like do-it-yourself when it comes to Fourth fireworks!
adam
One Fourth we treated your Gilsum neighbors’ kids to an unexpected display with a couple boxes of one-fuse-gets-you-5-minutes-of-giddy-explosions fireworks on one of the 19-teenagers-and-four-tents weekends … (the locals were camped out in the upper field — to see Perseids, if I recall correctly — when we entered en masse with our pyrotechnic intentions).
rakkity
How could the Perseids compete with one-fuse-gets-you-5-minutes-of-giddy-explosions?
jennifer
Wait. How could one-fuse-gets-you-5-minutes-of-giddy-explosions compete with the Perseids?