I would contend that there is no such thing as a memorable fireworks show. After all, very few people even know what we are watching. What I mean is this. The closest most of us come to even describing our favorite rocket is to say, "The one that looks like a shooting star" or "The one that shoots off a again once it gets really high." There is no way to describe to your friends the great sequence of explosions a certain master of ceremonies might have engineered on any given night. In fact, unless there is a Fireworks Magazine out there with a much higher circulation than I am giving it credit for, I would dare to say you would have to create your own language and jargon to even describe said Firecracker Engineer's crowning moment.

However, this is not to say that we do not look forward to each and every "4th of July Extravaganza" with an anticipation that I would liken to the sleeplessness of a grade school Christmas eve. We do. In fact, it is the talk of the day, the week even. "Where are you going for the fireworks?" is the interrogation muttered all day, so banal by the time the sun goes down that it could rival "how was your weekend?" were it to be uttered in the dining hall of a University campus or next to the water cooler at the office.

But I would contend that it isn't the show itself that we look forward to at all. Nor is a Fireworks Show what we remember when we reminisce about the '4ths' of yore. What we remember, and cherish about this holiday and this ritual is that the 4th of July allows us to be reverent again. To not be cynical, careful, hurried, stressed, overworked, underpaid. Even if only for a moment, all we have to be is American. In a flash of light an adult can have an imagination that can go scene for scene with a child's. Allowing us to peer back in time and picture the actual firefight between the Colonials and the British Navy that the pageantry is intended to represent.

Just after the sun goes down every Independence Day, night washes over the promotion you didn't get, the team your kid didn't make, and the pyramid scheme you fell for five years ago. This year, when the sun set on July 4th, night washed over a struggling real estate market and gas station signs brandishing prices too high for belief. Night washed over a Presidential race with as many historical pressures as consequences and also washed over an argument I had with a friend.

But when the skies lit up again, miraculously, everyone was the same age, race, and party. Ballplayers came out of locker rooms and laid on the cool grass to gaze skyward with the same wonderment as the school-age boys who idolize them from the bleachers. America's wealthy sat next to America's most recent arrivals with awe and respect for something greater. "Everyday Life" found a way to float away on the first cloud of residue from the first explosion. Replaced by a metaphor for freedom and opportunity carrying with it the gravity that riveted each and every one of us to the flash and rhythm created by this spectacle. With mouths open and eyes wide, we were harmonious in our appreciation. For that segment in time, blankets stretching down the beach, through the City Park, or around the neighborhood swimming pool managed to link families to one another in a Rockwellian quilt of old-world Americana. For that moment in time, this land believed in each of us and we all understood the American Dream. Finally, after 29 years of fireworks shows I realize… that's what the 4th of July means to me.

Andy K.