Tonight was our country's annual "eat barbecue, drink stuff, and set fire to things that will explode in pretty colors" day. I've had a lot of different experiences for the 4th of July and over the course of my life I have gone from being terrified of fireworks (I was a toddler) to being absolutely enthralled with them. Every year, the small town I went to middle and high school in had a fireworks show in a nearby fishing town. Every year, donation jars would appear in March or April and people would contribute a dollar here or there and pay for the show themselves. It was a town tradition, and one of my favorites. It would always start with a burger at the diner, and be followed by the short drive out to the coastline, where Mom would always park the car in the same spot. We'd take the same walk--strolling along the marina and stopping to talk to friends and acquaintances, watch this family's fireworks or that family's kids playing with sparklers. We'd browse in the little shops and eat fudge and drink soda and inevitably we'd always end up back in the car reading and waiting for it to get dark enough for the show to start. Every single year we'd take sweatshirts to fend off the cold that comes from coastal darkness, and every single year we'd forget that sweatshirts simply did not do the job. We'd shiver outside on the grassy bank until we couldn't take it anymore and then we'd seek refuge in the car and twist our necks as weirdly as they'd go to see the whole show through the winshield. The fireworks show was the most impressive thing I would see all year. It would always awe me and I think now that's partly because of the ritual behind the whole thing. I've seen more elaborate shows, longer shows and more costly shows but no 4th of July experience has ever seemed as cool as those do. No matter how fancy the show is, no fireworks will ever top those I watched evey year with the rest of my little town. I haven't been to one of those shows in six years, and every year I miss them a little more. I know that to go now would mean not recognizing a lot of the faces, and/or having to deal with lots of questions "How was college? You didn't graduate? Why? What are you doing now? Where did you go after you left school? Do you miss it here? Do you remember so and so that you never talked to? How often do you talk to them now? Have you heard about..." and on and on. I think though, that it would all be worth it. To go and be with my town. It was a town of few rituals, but what few it did have, it did up right.