Fireworks Over Hawaii

There are two major annual events in Maple Shade that are non-miss events for any loyal Shader: the Sidewalk Sale in the fall, and, of course, the fireworks in July.

As a kid my Uncle Stosh and Aunt Joyce would often come over our house with their kids for a barbecue on the day of our fireworks, usually a week before the actual fourth of July, and we’d go watch the pyrotechnics display all together. We’d gorge ourselves on hot dogs and my dad’s famous “hockey puck” hamburgers, all over-cooked and burnt in e-coli paranoia, then play a few games a whiffle ball in the back yard until my brother started screaming about how everyone cheats. Then as dusk approached, my mom would ritualistically spray us down with Skin-So-Soft that she bought from the neighborhood Avon lady to ward off the bugs, we’d pack a few snacks, and walk a block away to Maple Shade High School to claim our seats for the parade.

I always wanted to sit as close as possible to the fireworks, because it seemed like that was where all the excitement was: people scanning the crowd selling tee shirts, peddling neon glow-necklaces, music, and announcements. My dad always wanted to sit near the exit and porta-pots, where we couldn’t hear what was going on and where the green glowing neon necklaces were just glowing in the distance like the fireflies in the back yard.

We’d sit there on the grass in our beach chairs, the excitement building as the first firework splashed like a bright amorphous Rorschach blob across the July night sky as soon as it was dark enough to do so. Then, one after another they zipped up from the football field, blotting out the stars, leaving nothing but a cloud of gray smoke coving the town from the highway to Main Street.

Every now an then a plane would fly by on its way to Philadelphia International Airport, or perhaps leaving Philadelphia for Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Paris, or any other number of places I’d only seen in school text books or on TV. I had never flown before, and always thought it would be cool to be able to see fireworks from the air. As I stared up at the glowing chandeliers of the colored light taking form in the sky I imagined myself gazing out of an airplane window, looking at this same display from above. I fantasized about what it must look like from above, little pieces of food-colored cauliflower blooming and collapsing, a lifetime condensed into seconds.

I thought we might be able to see a few fireworks in the Los Angeles area as we left on our trip to New Zealand, since we were leaving on July 5^th at 8:45 at night, but none were evident. I then began to imagine flying over Hawaii as they had their fireworks displays. I thought to myself, “I’ll watch out for the GPS on the back-of-the-seat TV screen and see if we’ll have a chance to see anything as we fly over Hawaii.”

Of course, our path didn’t take a course over Hawaii, and it didn’t help that I was not only not in a window seat but on a bulkhead aisle of our enormous Qantas Airbus 300. Not only that, but the windows that were closest to my seat were also blocked off as a sleeping area for the Australian flight attendants. I guess I’ll just have to keep my eye out the next time I fly out at night on a fourth of July weekend.