Full dark finally in mid-summer, about 9:30. Our younger son,
Joe, had been put to bed an hour before. My wife Sally had driven
to pick up our older son, Bud, who was out celebrating with friends
on his last day home before leaving for prep school summer
session.
The first sharp boom came, easily identifiable as hometown
fireworks. You get to know the sounds, the echoes, the directions,
and the distances. A certain timbre announces Haverhill’s
fireworks. Another, you know it’s Methuen. Yet another, Lawrence.
Andover, because of the intervening hills and trees, sounds only
faintly.
But the hometown boom here in North Andover is unmistakable. I
picked up a lawn chair and, dressed in my summer pajamas, sweatsuit
and slippers, staked out a spot on our driveway. There, with my
cigar, I could see most of the fireworks display from the Middle
School athletic field, a mile away — all except the low-exploding
phosphorus cracklers, which are blocked by trees.
I HAVE AIRED MANY A GRIPE ABOUT MASSACHUSETTS. But, around the
Fourth of July, Massachusetts takes its fireworks very seriously.
For our first ten years here, we lived in Charlestown, an easy walk
to the Charlestown Navy Yard, one of America’s capitals of
pyrotechnia. From the Navy Yard, we could see the displays from Fan
Pier in downtown Boston, just across the harbor, from the North End
(close enough to Charlestown that redcoats encamped there could
hear rebels building the fortifications for the battle of Bunker
Hill in Charlestown; it was quieter back then), and, for many
years, the granddaddy of all displays, the Boston Pops concert
ending with the 1812 Overture’s cannonade and fireworks
set off from a giant barge in the Charles River Basin.
A good ten score people or more would gather on the Mead Street
steps in Charlestown, a tradition of decades, from where we could
see the Charles River display perfectly. Unfortunately, developers
have built big condos in between, and you can’t do that
anymore.
So on this night, our son’s last night truly at home, leading to
a tomorrow that would be one of the signal days of our lives, I sat
in our driveway and watched the brilliant explosions. There were
the big, slow, graceful rockets raining down red, green, white,
yellow, or blue, like fiery weeping willows in glowing motion. The
firemen set off rapid cannonades in alternate rhythm with the
high-flying skyrockets. I especially loved the pauses, when the
roaring echoes rolled in tidal waves across our valley.
Massachusetts has some 300 cities and towns. Every year, nearly
every one of them sets aside several thousand dollars from its
municipal budget and cheerfully blows it up. It makes me glad that
I am here.
Lawrence Henry writes every week from North Andover,
Massachusetts.
