(Cross-posted on my FB page):
Yes, yes, I saw the fireworks! Yes, I even enjoyed them. Husband and daughter really wanted to go, so we went, but got there just when the fireworks began, so it wasn’t as if I was forced to endure the cheering crowds for beyond than half an hour. Instead, I just got to appreciate the beauty of the burst of colors (and tried to push unwanted thoughts like “It’s a bloody expense,” “What an environmentally wrong thing this is,” and so on, out of my mind). Yes, it was lovely. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the excesses, the environment, the false sense of patriotism, the rah-rah that goes with any such event.
It seems wrong to celebrate all this activity, though. This isn’t the United States of America anymore — this is the United Corporate Entities of America, and THEY certainly aren’t patriotic!
Still, I’ll go again next year — only for my daughter’s sake. One cannot inflict one’s prejudices on one’s children and spoil things for them (I mean, I even got over my dislike of winter and sledded for her sake — and even liked it).
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