Another Fourth of July holiday is over and it’s been over a week since the sound of firecrackers started. Every year they start slowly, an occasional boom here and there, but crescendo into a mortar barrage by the actual holiday.
Fireworks are not as innocent as they seem and I don’t understand people’s fascination with them. I like a good firework show put on by professionals or at least people who have had some practice dealing with fireworks displays, but I don’t like all of the cheap fireworks that people light off in the middle of the street and middle of the night each year.
The obvious reason for my frustration is the danger involved, but I also question why the people who can least afford fireworks are the ones willing to blow up all that money. How can someone who lives on food stamps afford a display which probably costs several hundred dollars and why would they want to? Possibly, since they have so little in their control, there’s some pleasure to be had from watching something that they really cannot afford go up in smoke. Perhaps it’s a metaphor for their lives. That may also be the reason why a lot of lottery tickets are sold to the poor and the majority of the people who spend their money on cheap carnival rides are usually those less fortunate as well.
Then there’s the safety issue. Hundreds of people are injured every year by fireworks, some through foolishness, but most through ignorance of how dangerous fireworks can be. I learned from experience that even the most innocent firework can be dangerous. The summer after my sophomore year in high school we were lighting fireworks in the backyard. Someone set off one of those little parachute fireworks that used to be common. They didn’t provide much of an explosion… just enough to send a small little paper parachute up into the air where it would gradually float back down to earth because of an attached lead weight. The one we lit did not go off. After what seemed like enough time I leaned over to see what the problem was. At that precise moment it exploded. The weight attached to the parachute hit my glasses and I ended up with shards of glass in my left eye. Panic ensued until we found an ophthalmologist willing to meet us at his office where he plucked out the glass fragments that were in my eye and sent me home with an eye patch to wear for a couple of weeks. The only good thing to come out of that event was finding a good eye doctor who would be there for me through several other unfortunate self-imposed accidents with the same eye. I have had problems with that eye ever since, and a natural fear of fireworks. I no longer worry about my head getting blown off but I am concerned occasionally about the house being set on fire.
My issues around fireworks are minimal compared to some of the members of our military who have spent time in combat zones. Why does the average citizen think they should create all of this thunderous noise for days surrounding the holiday? I don’t know many who served in the Gulf War, but I had friends that served in Viet Nam. For years, after their return, the slightest unexpected noise like a car backfiring or sonic boom, would send them to the floor in terror. I would imagine it is the same for our more recent vets.
Fireworks on any day but the Fourth are difficult for vets with PTSD according to Thomas Demark, a psychiatrist with the Kansas City VA Medical Center’s PTSD program. “Try to limit your firework use to the Fourth of July’, he said. “The fireworks — vets expect them on the Fourth of July. But it’s the one’s the day or two or the week or two before or after that are unexpected.”
“Give honor and respect to this country and the freedom that we have and also to be aware that, for some veterans, this isn’t a great day of celebration. It’s more of a day of mourning and can cause memories of traumas that occurred during combat, so be respectful to them,” said Demark, an Army Reserve veteran.
Why would we, on a patriotic holiday, make life miserable for those who have fought so bravely for the freedom that we are celebrating? Emporia as the founder of Veterans’ day, should be especially sensitive to veterans on the 4th of July. Perhaps, in honor of those veterans, we should limit the lighting of fireworks to only the holiday. It’s the least we can do for veterans and everyone sensitive to the noise.