Feet in the water

SHERWOOD KIRALY

On Sunday night, Patti Jo and I went down to Main Beach to watch the

fireworks.

I’m an old hand at fireworks -- an old, severely burned hand. As a

tyke in Missouri, I lit my first Fourth of July firecracker and held

it in front of me until it went off. You may have seen Sylvester the

Cat do this; I did it about the same as he does.

A few years later, I spent a Missouri Fourth with a lit punk stick

jammed in my teeth, aping Robert Culp’s “I Spy” opening, lighting

fuses and tossing firecrackers outward so they went off in mid-air.

It’s a wonder I’ve got any facial features at all.

Now I live in a state where they pretty much leave it to the

professionals, and on Sunday night we parked at Patti Jo’s mother’s

house on Temple Terrace, walked down to the beach and joined a big

cluster of folks, some of whom had been camped since 10 a.m. and all

of whom had somehow parked somewhere.

We hadn’t watched fireworks from the beach in years, and I thought

I was blase about them anyway. I was just going to watch the

watchers, but I ended up gawking at the sky like everybody else.

There were boats offshore and about 10 people hopping and

boogie-boarding in the surf. We sat on the sand as the tide

approached our feet, watching the fireworks bursting, silhouetting

the swimmers. It was preposterously beautiful ... benign explosions.

Just awe, no shock.

The crowd was made up largely of out-of-towners, families,

couples, kids and startlingly free of inebriation.

Afterward, we all spilled into Downtown. Patti Jo and I headed

south, hearing isolated booms behind us and always turning back too

late to see the starbursts. Then we went home, read the Declaration

of Independence and went to bed.

I usually take my own political existence for granted, but we all

redefine ourselves as Americans in an election year, whether we vote

or not. Rather than close with my own material, which can be uneven,

I’d like to supply you with a quote appropriate to our present

situation, both federal and state. I read it for the first time the

night of the fireworks display, in “The Annals of America.” Credit

goes to an early U.S. congressman named Fisher Ames, who died on the

Fourth of July in 1808:

“Monarchy is like a splendid ship, with all sails set; it moves

majestically on, then it hits a rock and sinks forever. Democracy is

like a raft. It never sinks, but, damn it, your feet are always in

the water.”