TheBanyanTree: fireworks and thunderboomers

[Julie Anna Teague]

Funny how a pouring rain can make all the difference.  Fourth of July. 
We'd gone to see the fireworks as usual.  We never go to the parade.  It's
in the middle of the day and hot as blazes, and frankly, none of us likes
parades much.  But by evening, we are all sort of psyched for the
fireworks.  And so off we trudged, Lee and I with kids, chairs, blankets,
and my mom and stepdad Mike.  We were all enjoying them.  Mom and Mike
commented that they hadn't prepared well because they'd forgotten chairs
and only had a couple of trashbags to throw down on the damp ground.  I
gave them chairs, of course, but they felt it was an imposition.  (Which
it wasn't, of course, but that's my mother.) 

Twenty minutes into the fireworks, my almost 14 year old son Andy asked,
"Was that lightening or fireworks?"  We all shrugged.  A couple of minutes
later he asked, "Was that thunder or fireworks?" Again, we all shrugged. I
suppose we were pretty absorbed in the spectacle.  Andy was vindicated
when the rain started and quickly became a deluge and everyone grabbed
chairs and blankets and ran under an overhang of the nearby large
University building.  The wind picked up and a muggy, hot night quickly
became a wet, cold night. Mom tore a hole in her garbage bad and put it
over her head elfin style. Mike, an engineer, used his pocketknife to
carefully engineer his trash bag into a cozy, space-blanket sort of get
up.  Mom commented on how prepared they were!  They were the only ones
there with garbage bags!  We were laughing with them and at them.  
              
At that point, the people setting off the fireworks decided to go for
broke and set off all of the rest of them as quickly as they could.
Everyone under the overhang ran out into the pouring rain to watch the sky
light up with hundreds of fireworks and lightening.  Truly beautiful.  My
son Seth said, "God wanted to get in on the finale." 

Eventually we had to make a break for it.  Mike, Lee, and Andy took off
for the car at a quick clip.  Mom and I made our way through the rain
slowly with two chairs and a big blanket, and number two son to guide
through a dark, muddy, flooded construction site and across two busy
streets.  We were struggling and puffing and commenting on how our
partners had an "Every man for himself" attitude when the going got rough. 
We could see them up ahead as we ascended the last little hill and
stumbled across the big parking lot.  Mom yelled up, "Hey!  Don't worry
about us!  We don't need any help back here!  Thanks for asking!"  Mike,
maybe having second thoughts about taking off and not offering to help,
decides to cough up a bit of encouragement, and yells over his shoulder,
"Keep on truckin'!" 

Mom and I, in our trashbags and squishing shoes and wet blankets and
sodden canvas lawn chairs, nearly fell to our knees laughing.  We decided
that the downpour had made the evening that much better.  Lightening and
fireworks and that childlike free feeling of playing in the rain and
laughing out loud.  

Julie

 

 

 

 

Julie Anna Teague

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