The Fireworks Were Always for Me

Who doesn’t like fireworks?

I mean, aside from yappy little dogs and maybe my dad for a time after Vietnam—most people love them.

Me? I always have.

My birthday is July 2nd, so I grew up thinking the fireworks were part of the celebration. I didn’t quite understand national independence, but I understood sparklers, rockets, fountains, and that sound you feel in your chest when a big one goes off. I believed—deep down—that all those fireworks were for me.

One of the earliest shows I remember was behind the Emma Chase school in Wurtsboro .Everyone brought lawn chairs, sat on blankets, swatted bugs, and waited for the boom.. The fireworks crew set up along the treeline, just far enough away to make you feel safe—but close enough that you felt the heat when something went up right.

One year, though, something went very wrong.

A mortar misfired. It only went up a few feet before it ignited—setting off all the other tubes around it and the entire finale in one roaring, chaotic blast.

Even as a little kid, I knew this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. There was a sudden red glow lighting up the trees, and I could see people down near the launch area—men I knew from around town, the kind of guys who coached Little League or worked at the firehouse—bathed in red light and running full tilt toward the danger.

It was one of the first times I remember feeling that kind of adult seriousness. Like, this isn’t pretend. This is bravery. This is community.

The next day, a kid found an unlit shell in the grass and got hurt. That was it. The end of that show forever.

After that, we started going to Ellenville for the Fourth. It was eight miles the other direction—where my dad delivered mail and everyone seemed to know him. They set off fireworks down near the airport, with the Shawangunk Ridge towering behind it. The mountains would send the sound right back at you, like nature’s own subwoofer. The Army Corps of Engineers had built massive flood dykes there after the big floods, and they just happened to make the perfect bleachers.

The first year on the Dike with Jamie ,Kayla, Megan and Alida

You’d sit up high, bugs buzzing, fireflies blinking, and just feel that sound in your ribs.

My favorite spot was near the old knife factory and the aluminum plant. People sat in lawn chairs and on tailgates all around town, but that place always felt right. My dad would hold court wherever he went—shaking hands like he was running for office. My mom and sister used to call him the “unofficial mayor” of anywhere he stood still for too long.

They weren’t wrong.

Later in life, he took over as postmaster in Kauneonga Lake.  Within a few months he was like a Fifth-generation local, knew every gravel driveway in town. He was back to his old routine—laughing with every store owner, swapping stories at the coffee counter, making himself a fixture.

He spent a lot of time at Vassmer’s Store, the kind of place that felt like the floorboards remembered everyone who ever stepped foot in it. It was more than a general store—it was part museum, part meeting hall, part back porch for the town. Alan would go in, grab a coffee, and lean into the counter like he’d always been there. 

It was there that he struck up a friendship with a guy who did land clearing and stump removal—a guy who also happened to run the fireworks shows.

And just like that, the man who used to tolerate fireworks, maybe even flinch at them, was wearing a hard hat and holding a flare, walking around the grounds  like he was in charge of NASA.

We’d put the boat in and float out on the lake to watch. The fireworks would explode above us and then again on the water, the reflections almost as bright as the real thing. The booms bounced off the hills. You could feel the air change with each one.

It messed with the fishing for a few days, but it was worth it.

By the next year, he had roped me in. I was wearing my own hard hat, safety glasses, and carrying a flare. I started out burying mortar tubes in the sand, and before I knew it, I was hauling floating plywood barges loaded with cakes and shells.

Lighting a fuse and having sixty seconds to paddle away from a barge full of high-grade explosives? Let’s just say it taught you a healthy respect for physics.

We had shows timed to music, coordinated intros, double finales. Most years, I’d only get to see the first volley and the final blowout—because the rest of the time I was loading tubes and firing shots. But hearing the crowd cheer from across the lake, watching the sky light up, Listening to that one guys car alarm going off , knowing we did that—it was something special.

And once in a while, if I turned and caught him just before a big launch—I’d see it.

Alan’s eyes lit up. His mouth curled into that boyish grin. His whole face would change, like something inside of him got to come out for a second. All that emotion he kept locked up tight most of the time? It showed up in those flashes of joy and pride. It was rare. But it was real. And I never forgot it.

Years later, Jamie came around and we took the kids to Ellenville again. Then we really stepped it up—camped out at Floyd Bennett Field, an old Air Force base in Brooklyn, and dragged the whole gang to the Promenade. Watching the Macy’s fireworks explode over the skyline, reflecting off the glass of Manhattan and the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge lit up in reds and blues—it was something else.

Never mind the quality, all phones took potato pictures back then

Then in 2022, me and a couple of the kids stuck it out in the heat and stayed late to watch the Disney fireworks on the Fourth. Most of the overstimulated kids were long gone by the time the big show started. Fireworks came from all over the park, with the main show behind the Magic Kingdom. It was one of the best shows I’d ever seen—and I’ve seen the behind-the-scenes of plenty.

For a few moments that night, I felt eight years old again.

The last couple years we’ve stayed home. Nothing local quite measures up. But this year, I think I’m going to find a show.

Not for the loud bangs or the crowd or the traffic. Not even for the nostalgia.

I just want to feel like that kid again.

The one who thought the fireworks were for him.

And maybe—just maybe—catch a glimpse of Alan’s grin in the glow.