Fireworks

I live in Cambridge, less than a mile from the Charles River. When I first moved here, I figured out that it was fairly easy to walk down to the river on the evening of the Fourth of July and watch the fireworks being set off from a barge near the Esplanade on the other side of the river.

At that time, there weren't giant speakers blaring the music of the concert, but usually people had brought boomboxes and you could hear the end of the concert just before the start of the fireworks.

My schedule was to leave my apartment when they started the 1812 overture. I would see the fireworks at the end of that piece from Kendall Square, and then walk to Memorial Drive (closed to traffic for the event) in front of the MIT East Campus to the strains of "The Stars and Stripes Forever", watch the fireworks with the large crowd, and walk home.

At some point in the 90's they started having large speakers on the median strip playing the concert overamplified. They also changed their schedule, and had the pop star of the year perform after the 1812 Overture and before The Stars and Stripes.

Then in about 1998, they decided to have recorded music "synchronized" to the fireworks display. People who watch it on TV actually seem to like this, but if you're not where the TV cameras and sound recording are, of course the synchronization isn't very good. And fireworks are too loud by definition, but accompanied by music that's too loud, it can be literally painful.

So while I still enjoyed the fireworks, it was an enjoyment increasingly mixed with a "Why are they doing this to me?" feeling.

So there have been several years when I accepted cookout invitations in some other town, and the year before the hip surgery I was in Cambridge, but I just couldn't face walking a mile there and back, standing for an hour or more, and still having to walk the dog when I got back, so I just walked the dog around the block, where we could see a little of the highest rising fireworks.

Yesterday, I was feeling disgruntled and not much like community celebration, so I walked the dog at 9:30 so that we'd be home before the large crowds were walking by our house on their way home. This turned out to be during the 1812 Overture, and we could see those fireworks pretty well from the athletic field we had walked to. So we got home and watched the Pop Star of the year (country singer Toby Keith), and when the fireworks started, I went out to see how much I could see of the fireworks without going anywhere much.

It turns out that the new park across the street affords a pretty good view, and there were several neighbors to watch with. Of course, you didn't see any of the low-lying display, but you often don't see that very well from the river, either. And it's far enough away that the sound and the light of the display are pretty badly out of sync, and of course the sound isn't as exciting as it is closer. But those disadvantages are really worth it to not be bombarded by the overamplified "music".

Related posts:

1. Thursday plans
2. Walk in the woods
3. Plans for the June 26 meeting