Yet another American holiday crept up on me when I wasn't expecting it.
Yesterday, still sitting around in my pyjamas at midday, I heard three loud gunshots, and then a flyover by a military jet or two. Yes, the Fourth of July. Not a three gun salute, though - the shots went on sporadically... must be marking midday... no, way past twelve of them. Three quarters of an hour later I finally gave in and had to go out to find out whether a British re-invasion was being repelled, or whether English people were being shot in effigy. In front of the State Capitol building I found lots of flags, a big and very noisy gun, and a thin little crowd listening to a thin little military band playing music that sounded as if it would fit well at an English garden party. Some kind of Independence Day military ceremony.
The crowds and the people on the street are more interesting for me on days like this than the events, though I can only take them in short doses. What makes people get up in the morning and go out to take their flags for a walk? It seems like a football match, except that there is only one team.
In the evening I took a run to the City Park, where I knew the Colorado Symphony Orchestra was giving a free "All-American" concert. I arrived just in time to hear the last few bars of something very familiar and distinctly not American, and then a very short and very American finale which had people waving their flags and their babies in the air (which is perhaps why I really find such days so alienating - they are days for families and large groups of friends of the type you only have if you've managed to spend a decade or so in one place). So I ran home again, and went to bed good and early to make sure I could be woken up as many times as possible by my various neighbours. I understand that I missed a firework and lightning display.
To be honest, I think that fireworks are really quite boring - but don't tell anyone.
2 comments:
You should have come to Boulder for fireworks. Lots of people were lighting off sparklers, bottle rockets, and Roman candles, and this policeman waddled into the throng on the spacious Newton Court lawn and you could see him wanting to restore the Order of no fireworks allowed Law but there were just too too many, many kids,
laughter and beer drinkers, families on blankets and sprinkles to thunder, as dusk fell, taking with it the light of the long hot and the policeman back to his vehicle.
Your Denver Independence Day sounds almost placid compared to Bozeman's redneck version. It's probably a good thing your year here never involved a 4th of July! After lighting one sparkler, we left our friend Dave's BBQ next door. We put Felix to bed and thought we'd see what kind of other explosions Dave blew his money on. We sat on our front porch out of the line of fire on the street, which was a good thing: Dave lit a couple of duds, which were supposed to shoot straight up into the air about 100 feet and release a shower of color and light, but instead they shot off sideways with a boom that I swore was going to shatter some windows and permanently damage my hearing. Luckily I think my eardrums are okay, but I can still feel the shockwaves through my body.
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