Well, we had to go to bed early–no staying up to watch the fireworks, this New Year’s Eve. We did have a thunderstorm that woke me around 11:00. Then it stopped; and before I fell back asleep, I heard our local fireworks show.
The one in the video was held in Japan. Ours was pretty small potatoes, by comparison. But at least we got some 15 minutes of kaboom.
Now it’s a New Year. Our country survived the 2024 elections. We have another chance to put things right.
Let’s not waste it.
New Year’s Eve Fireworks Fun in the Philippines
Back in the States during 4th of July celebrations, most major fireworks shows take place in parks. Though they do not observe America’s Independence Day here, Christmas and New Year’s Eve are celebrated with ambitious fireworks displays. However, this became a massive problem in our town when everyone was putting on displays. Until they put a stop to it a few years ago, “all hell” would break out. So many fireworks went off it sounded like a war was raging: the smell of sulfur filled the air and heavy yellow smoke hung over the whole town. On those nights, starting around seven or eight in the evening it didn’t matter where you looked, fireworks were exploding in the sky. And on the ground, the incessant pop of firecrackers and the zoom of bottle rockets came from every direction. This cacophony lasted long after dark until one or two in the morning (because we are on the equator, darkness falls about six o’clock all year round).
Every year these fireworks caused fires, and one or more houses or businesses would go up in flames. On a New Year’s Eve, the year before this chaos was ended, two adjacent fireworks stores ignited in a display few have seen before. By the time daylight returned, both stores, some motorcycles parked in front, the town’s Department of Agrarian Reform building—and its van—were reduced to charred, smoking ruins.
The blaze started in one of the stores when someone out front lit the fuse of a bottle rocket. But instead of a journey toward the stars, it took a short, nonscheduled flight back into the store where it had been purchased. When the rocket flew in, everyone sprinted out! We live a mile away, and from our apartment we could hear a miscellany of crackles, bangs, and sequential explosions. We thought someone was putting on a massive, half-hour, unbridled fireworks show, which we construed as machine-gun, rapid-fire sounds without ceasing. That display would have rivaled any Grand Finale I have ever seen.
“7,000 Miles of Life Perspectives A Memoir”
Holy cow
Our quiet residential neighborhood explodes in sound as cannons of fireworks are set up by someone at midnight CST. Then it is quiet once more. I wish I could say the same for New Orleans and the Muslim Jihadist who ran a pickup truck into a defensibly crowd. Thank the police, he is now dead and in hell.
I remember a New Year’s Eve, long time ago, when the rabbits in the neighborhood all came out to watch the fireworks..
I’ve been hearing fireworks last night, and tonight. It’s very dry here, right now, and I wish that people would take into consideration the fire risk, and refrain. A home in the area was recently lost, not to fireworks, but to a more generic house fire. The desert is no place for bottle rockets.
Where is the place for bottle rockets?
I enjoyed them as a kid, but they are mostly a great way to make a mess.