Quite a few fireworks were set off in my neighborhood
Tuesday evening (July 3). It was, unfortunately, the shape of things to come.
It turned out to be rather worse than I anticipated. As I said in an earlier post, for the last several years I have left town for the 4th. Was unable to this year because of illness.
On Wednesday, July 4 there were a few pops, crackles and booms beginning around 7:00 p.m. (
well before dark). By 7:30 p.m. they began in earnest, pretty much non-stop, from 7:30 p.m. until 12:30 a.m. Yes, five hours of terror for my poor Joeboy.
I closed my bedroom doors, so for the first hour or so he cowered in the dark hallway outside these rooms. After about an hour he crept out of the hallway, climbed onto the couch (he is allowed), then climbed into my lap (imagine, if you will, near 50# of lap dog). Joe has never been a lap dog, and has never before expressed any desire to sit on my lap, although I have often invited him to do so (with a 50# dog, my lap is not that big!). He then spent the next four hours sitting on my lap at "attention",panting, drooling, dripping saliva, trembling, and jerking at each successive boom. There were hundreds of them.
The only thing that seemed to calm him, if only a tiny bit, was to firmly grasp him around his chest and his rear, and hold him tight and close against my own chest. Again, this is a dog that, although friendly and affectionate, has never before expressed any desire to be a lap dog whatsoever. Until last night.
After the booms stopped (at about 12:30 a.m.) it took him another hour to stop panting and shaking. Finally, about 2:00 a.m., we were both able to fall asleep.
As I stated in an earlier post, for the last few years I have made sure that I was off in the mountains somewhere, at a campground that doesn't allow fireworks, far away from anything other than night time silence. This has been my "celebration" of the 4th of July.
At the risk of being thought a curmudgeon, or maybe even just an old fart (probably I am both, but don't like to admit it) I would like to close with a few words about fireworks. Until Joe came along, I quite liked fireworks and would seek them out for viewing - but, before Joe, there certainly did not seem to be such an inescapable abundance of them.
Maybe I am a cheapskate (well, yes, I admit to that too) but these things are
expensive. And the Independence holiday never passes without fires being started, and people being maimed and injured. I would wish that people (especially people with near neighbors) would forego the fireworks, save their money, and instead donate an amount equal to the cost of their fireworks to the local charity of their choice.
I, myself, will be donating a small amount to my local animal shelter, and also to the thrift store here in my town that uses all proceeds for dog rescue, even though I have not purchased a single firework for probably forty years.
It would seem to me that public displays of fireworks should be enough. If not, perhaps people should donate to these public displays to make them bigger.
I, personally, totally fail to understand why (seemingly) every house on the block seems to feel the need to make a mess in the street (which most never clean up), to put themselves and their neighbor's homes at risk, in order to light up the night sky for a few brief seconds.
My rant for the day.
Thanks for listening.
Anne
