Happy 4th of July to you all. I was just sitting on my front porch watching (and listening, of course) to all of the impromptu fireworks displays that people were setting off, and I began to wonder something.
You see, the fireworks that we use to celebrate the birth of our nation actually signify something, and they represent something. My question is, who knows what they are supposed to represent?
It is easy to get caught up in the tradition of fireworks for their own sake, and to spend your money to celebrate just because “that’s what we do.†We have holidays that signify certain, specific things, and the way that we behave on those holidays comes from what they mean. For instance, Memorial Day is a day for reflection and remembrance; Thanksgiving is a day for feasting and family; Christmas is a day for giving (forgive me, but I am NOT brainwashed, errr, politically correct, and I was raised in the Christian tradition); Labor Day is the irony of the bunch – we celebrate working by not working. What about Independence Day? What causes us to use fireworks?
I guess that you could say that this is my patriotic trivia question. Why do we celebrate our Independence Day with fireworks?
Carlo
I will give the answer tomorrow, if I remember…
**********************ANSWER************************
The answer is to remember the battles fought in the War for Independence (what we call the Revolutionary War). Ironically, the fireworks more resemble tracers fired in the air today than they do the muskets and cannon fired then.
Carlo
