Maddenation
Illuminating Fireworks
It’s during this time each year when, with patriotic gusto, we can all honestly say - God Bless America and God Bless FIREWORKS!!
I just got back from the world famous Whippany Fireworks with Mom, Dad, and the Friels (say it with me, “Tom Friel”). It was once again filled with great times and great thoughts and nostalgic feelings. How many Independence Days blur together, meshed into one memory of falling down as if shot after each loud BANG!, climbing up and hanging from the cross-bar of the field goal, having the Buzzies visit, eating watermelon before and after, watching the American Flag firework do-hickey light up to start the show, walking down Ertman, putting on bug spray (for me there has been an eerie change from ‘OFF’ to Mom’s friendly cosmetic ‘bug baby wipes’), getting eaten alive anyway, go ahead and add your memories.
Each time I go to the fireworks I’m filled with these thoughts. Oh the joy of being a kid! Reminds me of last year when the kids behind us kept insisting that THAT ONE was the highest firework of the night – no THAT ONE’S THE HIGHEST!
This year’s display was much of the same and lots of the different. For the first time since perhaps 1976 they came out with new kinds of dazzling fireworks. I was amazed, the excitement that I sometimes feel has to be manufactured at times like these was genuine and, well, like the word says, exciting! Let me tell you about some of them. I’ll start with my all-time, long-time favorite – the fishies. Love em. This year they added a new wrinkle – it was MAD fishies, or mad tadpoles or mad flying jellyfish or mad slithering snakes. No matter what you call it, they were dynamite (literally). They came on with reckless abandon. Dozens and dozens in a row, spinning and spiraling toward the sky making their distinctive ‘fishie’ sound. You know it. At one point it was nothing but the above mentioned fishies/whatchumacallits for like 4 minutes straight. The madness! People applauded out of control.
Then there were other new innovations in the firework extravaganza. They had one that exploded into the planet Saturn. How’d they do THAT? (more on that later). The explosion lead to a great ball with a red ring around it. That’s the truth, although I’m not sure if they called it ‘the Saturn’ or if they called it what Mrs. Friel thought it was, ‘the some kind of flower’. I tend to think that the great cosmic planet is much cooler. Another similarly shaped explosion turned into a smiley face. Whoa! And during the finale they had those seismic depth charge suckers, (like from ‘Attack of the Clones’ when Obi Wan is chasing Jango Fett) that do nothing more than explode furiously with approximately 480 decibels of sound (equivalent to six 747s taking off from your driveway) and with the luminosity of like 12 million candelas (for more one candelas, one of the base units of measurement in the metric system, click here), or roughly the equivalent to a human, let’s say YOU, being only a few yards from the sun’s surface, without sunglasses on. I’m serious, it was shocking! Literally defibrillating to say the least. Just ask Mom or Dad or the Friels. This year, because of almost no wind, we had a new neat-o effect caused by the accumulation dust/smoke from the finished fireworks. What happened was the fireworks would be shot super high and then explode while in the cloud. This produced a muted glow at the start, only to yield monstrous glowing embers burning through and out of the clouds. To me it looked like a sea anemone’s burning tentacles emerging out of the haze.
All of this majesty got me wondering how in the world they make these fireworks. Sure, big explosions of flames, that can’t be too hard, but a smiley face? And this got me wondering about our world and the point of science and how an understanding of science adds to the beauty and magic of the phenomena (fireworks, aurora borealis, autumn leaves, the peacock’s feathers, etc.) And the whole time I was there lying on my back watching the fireworks I couldn’t decide whether I wanted this one thing to remain a mystery or not. Would understanding the chemistry (early alchemy) of fireworks add to the beauty or spoil part of my childhood awe? I still don’t know. But go ahead and check out this PBS Nova website with lots of information on fireworks if you’re so inclined. I glanced at it but left for fear of learning too much. At some point I imagine I’ll find out and then teach it to my students or my kids or niece and nephew. One thing’s for certain – I sure missed the rest of the family.
David • Memories • 07/09/03 • 6 comments
Comments
David • 07/09/03 • 9:44 PM:In the comments please add to the list of Whippany firework memories. I guess Kath tripping on the rail road tracks in Baton Rouge would count too. (was that on July 4th?) Also, let’s debate on the illuminating beauty of science, shall we?
Patrick • 07/12/03 • 11:01 AM:Don’t you hate it when you post an excellent, important entry, and it turns out nobody is taking the time to post comments right then? Not even Kathleen, who, it would seem, would like this entry?
I guess we all are busy. I wanted to answer David’s call for fireworks memories and say that in general, I remember the fireworks, and fondly. But I don’t have very many specific memories close to the surface. I like when others (here, David) remember, because that often stimulates my own memory (or creates new pseudo-memories, who knows?). There have been many times where friends of mine (especially Vin Augelli) have told me about something funny I once did in school, and I have only a vague memory of it, or sometimes no memory at all, except that it sounds like something I might do. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I mean, it’s mostly bad, because I wish I could remember these things better, but it’s maybe good in that 1) I didn’t do said funny thing looking for attention, I think, or else I would have remembered it and would still be bragging about it, and 2) I get to relive the experience as if it were new (that is, if someone “reminds” me).
I know that as a writer of creative nonficiton, I ought to have a great memory, but I’ve managed to “get by” so far without one. What I do have, I think, is a pretty good ability to work in real time, to figure things out on the fly. And to think. Sure, there are much better thinkers, but I’m up there. This is why I could do so well on the analytical portion of the GRE (the logic puzzles and conundra), why I can still do physics in an emergency, even though I remember basically zero of what I learned in college, and why I can write essays that can at least get published in some literary journals.
But it doesn’t explain why I can do fairly well in Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy. That requires memory, right? And I do remember (or get inklings about) those facts and figures. Granted, Vin Augelli was always a notch above me in Trivial Pursuit too, but still. It’s a mystery, but a fun one to think about.
That said, I do remember when I was swim team coach at Bee Meadow and we were selling some stuff (brownies?) at the fireworks and my hair was rough and messy and bleached, and there were little kids all over listening to me and following me around, and two especially, Kristen Ulrich and Karolyne Duff, were playing a silly tag game, gotcha last, with me, and it was crazy fun! I don’t know why. I’m saddened to think that I’m past the point in life where “gotcha last” is fun. Where you can just run around and tag one of two other people, and stick and move and fake, and maybe fall down, or almost run into an innocent bystander, and you’ll be laughing your head off. I’m sad that I’ve outgrown that. Can I ever get that back?
David • 07/13/03 • 10:19 AM:The word ‘remind’ is great. After reading Pat’s comment I was struck by the coolness of the word - remind. To re-mind = to put in your mind again. Right? What a wonderful thing to do, especially when someone is reminding you of a great past experience.
Patrick • 07/14/03 • 7:37 AM:In Spanish, the word remind is a little less exact, but I think more cool: recordar from corazón or heart, so that recordar is to pass back through the heart, or something like that. Works better for nostalgic-type memories, but not so good for math test type memories.
Dad • 07/15/03 • 10:18 AM:My impression of the word remind is not notable or nostalgic, as expressed in the previous two comments. For me, remind is more prosaic, like, “Remind me to pick up the prescription.” I mean, the process by which the mind coughs up another idea when it hears a certain pattern of words, or sound, or smell, is truly amazing. But this is caught up in the wonderment of the workings of the brain rather than the interesting properties of a word. Anyway, I like the English word better because it says more exactly what we’re talking about, to “put in your mind again” as David suggested. The Spanish word, “to pass back through the heart,” is clearly better for those “tug at the heartstrings” types of memories, but lacks the straightforward clarity of remind. Which reminds me, what is the origin of those “heartstrings?”
Patrick • 07/15/03 • 11:41 AM:But we’re forgetting the intransitive, inside-version of the verb (another verb entirely, actually, but related): remember. Isn’t that what we’re really talking about? To put back together? To re-member? I like it better than the transitive remind anyday.
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