Blowin’ up stuff. Yeehaw!

I’m from Texas, so the Fourth of July means we’re free to blow whatever we want up to smithereens.

So you can imagine my surprise when we moved here to the "Good Life." I thought I had rid myself of the blow-stuff-up mentality. I thought wrong. Again.

I also thought upon leaving Texas behind, I’d be leaving all that football crazy in the rear view mirror. But, Texas doesn’t hold a candle to the sport of being a football fan or blowing up stuff quite like Nebraska.

At that time, he only legal explosions around our new home were controlled explosions in the mall parking lot.

We moved here when the kids were two years old. I’d get them tucked in and quietly tiptoe out of their rooms. Right after we’d get them to bed, KABLAMMO!!! Incessant M-80’s start, and then the mall fireworks that apparently aren’t just for the mall, started going off all around us. All I can think of is a war zone. Red Dawn was happening right then.

The kids started wailing, waking each other up. I wanted to just run outside and yell, “What the heck, y’all!?” But the word y’all would throw these usually docile Midwesterners off.

The muffled explosions were like some kind of Hunger Games filmed in Beirut in the 80’s.

Eventually, we gave in and just let the kids stay up to watch fireworks. Instead of a mall, we just set up lawn chairs up and looked down hill. We also relied on neighbors who blow up a month’s budget. It didn’t take long until Chris crossed over to the pro blow-stuff-up party. He insisted it was some rite of passage to teach kids how to light fireworks. You know, play with fire.

Eventually we succumbed to the pressures of the Good Life in warfare celebrating our independence. We found ourselves at friends’ parties celebrating America. In the end, it was not a mall, but we ended up driving to a location, letting others handle it.

I’ll never quite understand it.  But if you can’t beat them, join them. It’s liberating. Which is what we’re celebrating anyway, right?