I love celebrating the 4th of July. There are times when I am very ‘proud to be an American’ and other times, well..not so much – that’s I why I love the line in the Descendants song ‘Merican – “I’m proud and ashamed, every 4th of July. You’ve got to know the truth before you say that you’ve got pride”

But regardless of what my precise feelings may be at any given moment, I know we’ve got it better than most and am proud to celebrate it. I remember having a big block party on our street one year as a kid – everybody brought food and we kids had tons of fireworks to shoot off – and this was before all the decent fireworks were banned.

Then the next year my hometown started to do a big city wide weekend long celebration with a huge fireworks display at the end. It was the first time that I’d ever seen a professional fireworks display – and it was all synced to patriotic – or pseudo-patriotic music. I didn’t want to go because I was bummed we weren’t shooting off fireworks in our street. Then I saw them and I was amazed. And at that age even the horribly cheesy Neil Diamond and Lee Greenwood songs seemed cool when accompanied by big explosions of light in the sky.

Here in Oregon where neighborhood fireworks are illegal there’s not as much of a choice between home or display – but there are at least 4 major displays in our area – the big granddaddy in the ‘Couve ^[1], then on our side of the water you can go watch the bright lights at the Waterfront, Oaks Park and Blue Lake Park ^[2].

And since those are all on the 4th itself and many people will be having festivities on the 3rd – to take advantage of sleeping in on the 4th – there’s always the option of making a run for the border (and of course staying in Washington to shoot them off!)

So get out there and blow something up for America. *

* This statement is in no way telling you to actually go out and blow something up – we’re talking fireworks people – fireworks!