Why We Couldn’t Live In a Fireworks State

Why, you ask, could we not live in a state that legally sells fireworks? Because my family is a bunch of pyromaniacs! Seriously, give them a wick and a match and they’ll think they just won the lottery. This is especially true of Greg. I had to put a pan under his chin as we drove around Oregon. If you listened carefully, you’d hear the drip, drip, drip of his drool every time we passed a side-of-the-road Fireworks Depot. And there were a lot of them. Subsequently, there was a LOT of drool.

The night of July 4th, we went to the bay in Newport to watch the big fireworks show. We showed up a few hours early, unsure of whether or not Greg would have to fight to get close enough to feed his fix of fireworks fumes. We staked claim at a perfect spot on the edge of the bay, right near the Rogue brewery. In case the fireworks fumes didn’t feed his olfactory needs, the hops ones would.

Only one problem. It was the foggiest night of our entire trip. And I mean the kind of fog where you wonder if you should have put a GPS signal on the car for fear of never seeing it again. This was our view of the bay:

At first we were concerned we wouldn’t be able to see the fireworks, but then we discovered we had nothing to worry about. We were smack dab in the middle of a whole slew of people with the same drive to watch something explode as Greg. The kids had a blast (literally) with the fireworks Greg snuck out and bought. Check out the look on Braedyn’s face! He’s all, “yeah, I could do this for a living.” Well, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree!

I guess I can’t say it was ALL fun. For Emily I’d say it was about 3 parts fun, 1 part fear:

Speaking of fear, Greg lit a little bomb-type firework (hey, I don’t know the word – I’m NOT the junkie!). It went off just as a poor gentleman walked by - a poor gentleman who happened to be a Vietnam veteran. He was a good sport about it, so I’d say it was about 2 parts fun, 2 parts fear for him. You can see him walking unaware of what lay ahead just over Greg’s right elbow in this shot:

Some mischievous peeps started lighting Class C fireworks only about 15 yards behind us in some RV parking. These, I had to be informed, are the big-big fireworks that are used in the shows and which happen to be illegal in Oregon. Well, I’m glad these bad-boys-bad-boys-whatcha-gonna-do brought and lit these because the fireworks we had come to see hadn’t started by 10:30 pm. The kids were about to pass out, either from exhaustion or from the exhaust. Either way, we had to pack it up.

Even though we didn’t get to see the “official” show of Newport, we really enjoyed ourselves, largely because the community of pyros was such a welcoming and fun crowd.