I was so hypnotized by the 69 Tints story line (and are we all not?) last week I nearly forgot the holiday this week. Time out for a summer day filled with explosives and outdoor eatin’.

One year a neighbor came over to me while mowing the lawn with a garbage bag. He said he worked sometimes cleaning out houses, and they had found some fireworks, and gave them to me ‘for the kids’. In the bag was a small collection of gunpowder laden cardboard of questionable legality, at least where I live. On the Fourth, after some debate, my wife and I decided that after our daughter (only one year old) went to bed, we would pick one to try and let my 3 year old son watch. I put a coffee can sized box in the alley next to our home, lit it, and went back to the driveway. Two seconds later a 30 foot column of fire was shooting into the air accompanied by ear splitting, shrieking howls. My wife and I looked at each other in alarm. My son watched wide eyed with a look of pure joy as if this was the best thing he had ever, and would ever, see in his life.

So yeah. Totally worth it.