And the Rocket's Red Glare

A very fuzzy photo of my grandgirls having fun at Knoebels on their recent visit. I wanted to convey excitement because that's what the Fourth is like around here. Last night there were three major fireworks shows going on. It was fantastic, noisy and somewhat sobering. It must have sounded like that to folks who lived near Gettysburg during the battle.

One set of fireworks is visible from our front lawn. So we put on some bug spray, set up our lawn chairs and enjoyed the show in the comfort of our own yard. The guy who does the fireworks is called Pizza Paul and he runs a local---can you guess?---pizza restaurant. But he lives for fireworks. He does these on Back Mountain and then he does the big fireworks for the city of Wilkes-Barre.

No worries about burn bans here although the fireworks can get rained out. And the weather yesterday was perfect. A little hot for the locals perhaps (high 80s) but the temperatures soon dropped. And by the time we went to Sonic for dinner last night with the top down on Michael's convertible, it was in the 70s again.

I have an assignment on Monday night to cover the festivities in Pringle, the smallest incorporated city or town in Pennsylvania according to my buddy, Tom Mooney, who knows these things. It's one half square mile with a whopping 991 residents. And they too put on their own fireworks show with the city of Wilkes-Barre's fireworks visible in the distance.

There will be eleven, count them, eleven different fireworks displays in this little valley over the next three days. And this in a metropolitan area smaller than my hometown of Shreveport.

What can I say? These folks love to party and they do it with a bang!