Every year around the Fourth, I think about a time I had exceedingly high expectations for a show, only to be very disappointed.
Fireworks Over the Charles River
July 4, 2015, Boston, Massachusetts
We had a camping trip planned to Acadia National Park in July. We were going to join up with several extended family members and were looking forward to it (that is a story for another day). We were traveling with my daughter and her young family (five and two years old) and wanted to spend a few days visiting Boston on the way there.
I’ve always loved watching the Boston Pops with the fireworks on television and was very excited to coordinate our trip with the show. We spent the morning on the subway and on the Freedom Trail, then after lunch decided we had better pick a spot along the river since it was likely to get crowded (boy, was that an understatement).
I’ve been in big cities and big crowds before (Chicago, New York, others) so was generally prepared for it.
Unfortunately, we were missing one key piece of information and made one regrettable decision. We didn’t have a good understanding of where they launched the fireworks, and with young children, chose a partially shaded spot near a building along the river.
When the first boom went off, people stood. Everyone moved forward to get out from under the trees, and soon we were all standing shoulder to shoulder, many with children on their shoulders.
If it were just the crowds, we would have been fine. But the fireworks were launched from farther upriver, around the edge of the building, and behind the trees. Soon there were more phone cameras held above folks’ heads than there were fireworks. What fireworks we could see were mostly obscured by the trees and smoke, which seemed to be concentrated where we stood.
Boston was great. I am glad we visited.
But next time, I think I’ll stick to hometown fireworks.
America's Best Idea
John Adams would have told you we celebrate on the wrong day. July 2 was the day the Continental Congress actually voted for independence. Even early in our nation’s founding, the paperwork took two days to finish, so July 4 got the party. He wrote to Abigail that the date ought to be celebrated with “illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.” He missed the date by two days. He nailed the fireworks.
One of my favorite categories of YouTube video is visitors from other countries seeing one of our national parks for the first time.
They remind me of what author Wallace Stegner wrote in 1983:
“National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.”
Look back through the stories on this blog and you’ll find the Smokies, the Grand Canyon, Isle Royale, and others. Nearly every one happened on land that belongs to all of us. No “Private, Keep Out” signs, no special invitation needed. It was simply decided, a while back, that the best places would be everybody’s.
I hope you get a chance to visit one of our best ideas this year.
That’s the version of “us at our best” I’ll be thinking about the next time I’m somewhere under the fireworks.
Which national park, or any public wild place, means the most to you?
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