Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!

 

by Pa Rock

Defender of Tranquility

This year's Fourth of July celebrating in my neighborhood was the loudest and most jarring that I have experienced during my ten years of living here.  The noise, which sounded more like cannon fire than fireworks, began shortly after dark and carried on for at least a couple of hours.  The dogs were rattled and required constant assurance that we were not under attack, though at times I was not so sure that we weren't.   It felt and sounded as though we were pinned down in an episode of the old television show, "Combat," and was well beyond anything that would have aired on "Hogan's Heroes," "MASH," or "Tales of the Gold Monkey."

One of the neighbor's fired off some colorful pyrotechnics which lit up the night sky and reminded me of the many fireworks displays that I witnessed while living in the Orient, though my neighbor's was on a much smaller scale, but most just seemed to be aimlessly firing howitzers into the darkness.  One thing that quickly became obvious to me during all of the mindless noise was that my neighbors obviously have quite a bit more disposable income than I do.

Of course, every dollar that they spend on cherry bombs is one less dollar that Trump will be able to give to his lawyers.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

I finally managed to get to sleep around ten p.m., which is late for me.  But the Fourth wasn't over!

At 11:30 p.m. I heard my son yelling from the living room, "Dad, dad, get up!  The tornado sirens are going off and there's a bad storm blowing in.  We need to get to the basement!"  I managed to get myself out of bed and dressed - to the sounds of thunder and the illumination of flashes of lightening - grab a frightened Rosie - make my way across the house - and head downstairs to our carpeted and comfortable - though not very well furnished - basement.

One thing I noticed as I was walking across the living room heading to the basement stairs, and again when we came back upstairs a short time later, was that there were several cars racing up and down our country lane.  Were they rushing to get home?  Or to check on the safety of others?  Or were they backwoods storm-chasers out looking for some excitement?  

I returned to sleep about an hour later as the thunder was still banging.  There was a happy ending to the night of craziness that came in the form a long rain before dawn which broke the terrible heat that we had endured on the Fourth.

Yesterday there was more noise in the afternoon - long bursts of automatic weapons fire that ripped through the peaceful afternoon, on-and-off, for about half-an-hour.  I hoped the shooter had enough money set aside to feed his family.

Freedom, baby, freedom!