Kipworld

Happy 4th of July, everyone, if anyone tunes in anymore. Life’s been sorta crazy. There was El’s graduation and all the hoopla of that (congrats, sweetie!) Then I’ve been caught up in the purchase of my condo. I close in 2 weeks. Things are pretty nuts when you’re making a large purchase. I’m going to be moving to a 1BR in a high rise. It’s going to be the first time I’ve had my own place to myself. I move in a month. The last thing to freak out about it whatever the hell I’m going to do w/ my foosball table.

Anyway, there’s so much that’s happened in the last month that it would do the events a disservice to try to write about all of em in detail in this post… Instead, I’ll talk about fireworks.

I remember the first summer that I got to light fireworks in my backyard (on the nonflammable patio). My Auntie Helen was in town and we had all these things from Chinatown: sparklers, poppers, and a cherry wheel that never quite did the right thing. Small firecrackers, but so were we.

In the summer of 5th grade, some of my friends got in trouble for filling 35mm film canisters with gas and lighting them in the street. So on the 4th of July the following year, we weren’t expecting to get to do much. However, my friend Ryan’s uncle brought a big box of stuff for us to blow up. Roman candles, cracklers etc for us and a big multistage one for him.

I can’t remember the last time I lit a firecracker… That summer might have been it Pretty sad when you think about it. Brookfield started to put on a great fireworks show around that time. It was at Wirth Park, so we’d go to Jason’s house and walk over. I remember climbing a fence with some of the other guys so we could watch it from the baseball diamond area. Another year, we jumped across the stream so that we could get close to the launch point (although the mosquitos made sure that we never tried that again).

Summers at CTD, we’d watch the Evanston fireworks from the Norris lawn.

During these big shows, I love the bright ones that explode with a huge bass bang. I also like the smiley faces. The cracklers on their own sort of suck, but in the big finale, they provide a cool background boom while the flashier ones are going off.

Fireworks on the 4th are way better than fireworks at New Year’s. Who wants to freeze their ass off while watching? No one.

Enjoy your booms today.