Go, Fourth!

     I hope everyone has a fun and festive holiday awaiting them tomorrow. Here in the hinterlands, we have a little festival in the park with all the requisite and charming activities like dump a local official in the pool of water, ride a firetruck, and eat barbecue, but the Fifth is actually the big celebratory day for us.

     For more than thirty years we've celebrated the day after everyone else because that's when the Colorado Springs Philharmonic can make a spot in their busy schedule for us. We call it Symphony Above the Clouds, which we hold at a school grounds, and we usually have about 7,000
-8,000 folks attend. There's the music and some concessions, but most folks bring a picnic basket, blankets and chairs, and come for "dinner and a show" as it were.

     But this year's event will be a bit quieter. We won't have truly some of the best fireworks you'll ever see as it grows dark because of the fire danger, and we probably won't have the canons from Fort Carson because of the Sequestration. I've joked before that this may be the only small town in America where every little kid knows the 1812 Overture of Mr. Tchaikovsky by heart and out of necessity. They need to know when to cover their ears to protect their hearing from the canon fire. This is how we begin our fireworks show, you see. Once the Overture and the canons are through, the fireworks continue for a good fifteen or twenty minutes--or so it seems--until every last rocket is shot into glory.

     It's a terrific little tradition of which we are most proud. It's also a great opportunity to see friends and neighbors you run into regularly as well as other folks you may only see a few times a year. Practically everyone comes and walks the crowd hopping from conversation to conversation. As my friend Bill says of events in our hamlet, "It's a stitch."

     But even without the fanfare and display, I know just as sure as the real estate agents who put an American flag in every yard in town and did so yesterday will come no matter what, that we'll manage to have the same great time that we always do. Even if we have to make pretend canon and fireworks sounds on the walk back home.