Just as sure-fire as Donny Trump gets whatever he desires by way of his blood-soaked wallet, fireworks came with the fourth day in July, per usual. I get it, I too enjoyed running from a freshly lit bottle rocket or pointing a roman candle at the moon, watching dancing spitfires brightly launch into nothingness — when I was 13. Now, at the aforementioned age but flip the 1 & 3, I can’t help but wonder about the reasoning for adults to keep making things go boom. I truly wonder what the celebratory explosions are for. I figure it must something like:
1) “I love bringing terror and trauma to any vets with PTSD, perturbing all the babies/elderly I reside next to, and every zoo animal, wild creature & pet in my neighborhood — it’s patriotism.”
2) “With the wonders that our overly qualified president has accomplished, like leaving the lower class to “figure out health care,” aka cutting it & letting so many inevitably pass, while rewarding the bezo-ionaires in tax cuts & rear end smooching, nor to forget militarizing our cities, unjustly sending citizens to far, far away super-prisons (can’t wait for the movie on that one!), or just being such a handsome orange wrinkle man — a lot to celebrate with booms and explosions,” or finally 3) “Since it has rained so much this summer, particularly the last few weeks before this ‘holiday,’ I bet sending hot ashes & bits of sulfur-simmering garbage all over my roof, my neighbor’s roof, and everywhere else it may land is a great, smart play on my end.”
The real quandary, aside from any jests at the big Donald Duck, is: Where’s all the local 5-0? Even the fourth-grade kiddo next door knows most fireworks launched into the sky (aka when our lil’ town turned into a live example of what it’s like living in other places in the world currently) — is illegal (see Brookfield’s Code of Ordinances Article XI: Sec. 36-605-11 if you drank the Kool-Aid). Our local enforcement will sit outside our homes, eagerly waiting for 8:59 a.m. to blink into 9 a.m. to write a parking ticket — yet, as we literally send an SOS “Ticket Me” sign in the air one after the other for hours on end, no police are to be found. Seems priorities of the fuzz seem to track more toward “green,” rather than “red, white & blue.” Anywho — hats off to Cooper & the mysterious “PEP” party (the same this very publication tends to “hi-five” any chance it gets) for taxing Brookfield’s only grocer, Tischler Finer Foods — as if grocery costs aren’t high enough.
Paul Pagæsh
Brookfield