SUMMER SCENE

Fireworks returning to Jones Beach. Hooray!

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It is hard to dislike fireworks. Yes, I have tried.

The environmentalist in me should not like smoke and haze filling the sky. The pacifist in me should not like the bombast of exploding shells. The humanist in me should not like resources going toward entertainment when so many around the world desperately need help. I try telling myself these things.

But the child in me — the boy who first witnessed fireworks on a Fourth of July many years ago at Jones Beach and was wonderstruck — still loves fireworks.

I have lots of great memories, often involving my family, of watching fireworks. When my sister and I were kids, in the 1990s, our parents would bring us to the beach for a full day of recreation, but instead of leaving at sundown, we carried on relaxing — this alone was a novel and exciting experience — until 9:30.

Right on cue, the sky erupted into astonishing visions of cascading colors, shimmering stars, swirling spirals and ballooning blockbusters. Underneath the incredible noise came streaming from speakers the mellifluous sound of Ray Charles singing “America the Beautiful,” and later the grand cannonade of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The fireworks climbed, peaked, burst, spun, dived and fizzled in perfect counterpoint. I was mesmerized.

An hours-long traffic jam on Ocean Parkway following the show one Fourth of July, two young children growing weary and grumpy in the backseat, scared my parents straight. But for years afterward, my father and I would walk each Independence Day to a marina near our Merrick home, giving us a clear view of the fireworks from across the bay. (My sister disdained fireworks’ din, and my mother was content to watch the New York City, Boston and Washington spectaculars on TV. I thought they were missing the summer’s coolest event.) At the dock, we would run into friends and neighbors from the surrounding blocks.

For three summers after high school, I worked as a seasonal hand at Jones Beach, and once again I had a front-row view of the fireworks. Now a young man and on my own, I was still awed by the beautiful display.

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