Three Fourths

It's the fourth of July!  We had dinner and brought the boy home to sleep.  During the day I did yard work to get ready for having people over tomorrow.  Sitting listening to the fireworks going off outside I got to thinking about past Fourths.

It's really amazing to me how few previous fourths I remember.  I can recall going to fireworks at DHS and at the HPHS athletic field, even going to Lake Forest once or twice.  I can recall the years I worked at Gilson.  But considering how old I am there are fairly few that stick out.

Three that do come to mind:

When I was twelve July 4 found me and my dad in Estes Colorado.  We were doing a cross country drive back from California to Chicago after the whole family had spent some time in LA.  I remember we went to see Superman 2 at a local movie theatre.  My dad thought it was stupid and for the rest of the trip would burble: "Not God.  Zod."  At least it made an impact.  We watched fireworks from the theatre parking lot.

In what I think was the summer after high school graduation I got to go to the Fort Sheridan fireworks and sit with some of the higher ranking officers.  One of my friends dads was one of the five highest ranking officers on the base.  Their seats were very, very close.  That was the first time I think I saw a ground display.  They must not have done them at the other shows I went to.  Being close up really changes fireworks.

Maybe three summers later I got even closer.  The summer I worked at Northwestern we had a shop party on the 4th.  Evanston does their fireworks at the beach right next to the Performing Arts Center and at the appointed time we headed up to the roof of the proscenium theatre.  This time we weren't just close, but we were pretty much level with many of the shells.  Very cool.  On top of that, the vantage let us see up and down the lake and to a bunch of exhibitions inland.  We must have spent an hour trying to place a municipality with each display.

Of course as I'm typing other years are coming to mind: working a turnaround in Maine, going to fireworks at Desert Breeze in Las Vegas.  There's no big conclusion here, just three fourths.