A Rooftop View Of Fireworks

As I write this, I am just a few miles from Sea World, where fireworks are presented nightly during the summer time. As I watch them, I imagine 'oohs' and 'aahs' rising up from the crowd of summer vacationers gathered beneath who are now, in late August, in their final days of touring before returning home to Ohio or Nebraska or Arizona to buy backpacks and binders and notebooks for their children's rapidly approaching return to the school year.

This morning, at a local coffee shop on the beach, I overheard a woman asking her pink-nosed son if he enjoyed their trip to San Diego. He said, "Yeah" hurriedly but seemed more preoccupied with his iced coffee drink and with the sandy leash of his boogie board. His mother seemed worn out, and I imagine she must be gladly anticipating the eight hours a day of state-funded day care that serves the dual purpose of both educating and socializing her offspring.

As I write this, the light from the fireworks has dimmed and gone out and the explosions, eerily reminiscent of the night time sounds I once heard during the early days of the Iraq War, still echo silently in my memory. As I write this, I am vividly aware that ones distance from an event does far more than to simply delay the sound effects.