Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Explosions in the sky. Not on the ground.

Light up the sky
Arva, ON
July 2010
Every street corner in town seems to have sprouted a fireworks kiosk. It seems to revolve around our Victoria Day (May 24) and Canada Day (July 1) weekends, and it always gives me a little chill as we drive past.

I'm willing to bet none of these vendors has extensive training in keeping munitions from munitioning themselves right there in the corner of the strip mall parking lot. I'm also willing to bet our resource-starved governments - municipal, provincial, federal, and any other level that may be out there - aren't sending waves of inspectors to these establishments to ensure all applicable safety standards are being rigidly met. (Truth be told, they're busy using Twitter inappropriately, but that's a story for another day.)

Of course, I may be stretching things with the use of the word, "Establishment". They're little more than hastily assembled groups of Ikea tables (the Alex model, I believe, with the trestle legs) with haphazardly piled boxes of rockets, firecrackers and bombs large enough to arm a small army of teenaged suburbanite insurgents. Hey, it could happen: Those cul-de-sacs can be nasty!

The long and the short of it is simple: They scare the heck out of me, and I can't wait until they leave so that the forlorn corners of our local strip mall parking lots can return to the grit-and-dust-covered broken asphalt deserts they've always been.

Still, fireworks look lovely, don't they?

About this photo: We're welcoming summer all week long, and what's more summery than fireworks? Click here to share your own.

2 comments:

Max Sartin said...

We're just entering the 4th of July to 24th of July (Pioneer Day in Utah, which is even bigger than our national independence day)fireworks season. This year, they are scaring me more than usual. We've had a very dry spring and summer and right now the hills are alive with dried out weeds, grasses and bushes. We have some 50,000 acres of land burning across the state(we've lost one life and hundreds of summer cabins), all caused by careless humans. There are a ton of warnings not to set off fireworks in the foothills, but unfortunately there is an equal amount of people who will choose their own amusement over common sense. But I agree with you, they are beautiful.

Unknown said...

I too share your concern of safety, Carmi. Fireworks are a thing of beauty. I like to think that in Phoenix, Arizona the enforcement of safety is solid. But there will always be violators who don't realize they are placing themselves in harms way by not adhering to laws. Here's hoping for the best!