fireworksI was pleasantly surprised after a disappointing reality check yesterday. Indeed, I was stranded in KC with no freight after my delivery was apparently mis-scheduled (NOBODY recieves freight on the 4th, what were dispatchers thinkin'?). So I spent the day at the Flying J (national truck stop chain) watching a daylong fireworks show called thunder, lightning and pouring down rain. Texas isn't the only place to flood in the last week, western Missouri got it bad as did parts of Kansas and Oklahoma.
Anyway, as I sat, I heard chatter on the cb that a local amusement park puts on a big fireworks display every year, and hey! said amusement park is a few blocks from my company terminal! So as the skies cleared out in the early evening, I headed to North Kansas City and parked at our lot up there. As I turn down our street, an industrial park from which you can reach the amusement park, I noticed the curbs were lined with hundreds of cars, 3 hours before the time the fireworks were supposed to begin. And then I noticed I was taking fire! POP! POP! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! POP!
(a truck passes a group setting off fireworks)
The crowd had brought their OWN fireworks! This whole place was a large free-fire zone where people came to set off their own stuff, drink, barbeque, and then watch the bigger show at 10pm. Cops had closed off the far end to prevent us un-paid masses from getting too close to the amusement park, but they did not stop anyone from shooting off every imaginable firework display you could imagine! There were sparklers, black cats, M-40s, star bursts, bottle rockets, you name it, from one end of the skyline to another, and from our vantage oint on the hill, we could also see displays from nearby towns as well. At times, the streets was clouded by smoke, causing one to choke on the acrid smell of gun-powder.
Rockets were being launched at and over stacks of shipping containers on the lot across across from our terminal, our parking lot was filled with local drivers families and grills, and, of course, a section cordoned off for, yeah, fireworks! It was a street party with armed non-insurgents! If you eliminated the video picture and could just play the audio and include smell-a-vision, you'd think this was from a gun battle in Falluja!
God Bless our boys and girls over there battling with the real thing so we can celebrate and play with our toys over here.
