Independence Day

I’m sitting here at my computer, listening to the neighbors set off bottle rockets or some other kinds of incendiary noisemakers. This is the first time I’ve been glad that my dog has gone deaf – she used to bark incessantly at the popping sounds of firecrackers, but this year has been different. She’s been napping quite soundly by the front door all night. (Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that I can still hear the noise, and I’m starting to get tired, and will the neighbors have gone through their entire stash of fireworks by the time I’m ready to get some sleep??)

I was wishing I had my camera last night – we went out to dinner with mom and dad, and then swung by their house to drop them off. Our neighborhood was in the middle of their 4th of July fireworks display (which was on July 2nd for some reason), and they actually put on a pretty good show, for a subdivision. But the view was much better from mom and dad’s driveway than it would’ve been from our own house, so we hung out in the driveway to watch the show. I kept wanting to run home and grab the camera, to see what kinds of shots I could get of the fireworks – but I was afraid if I left, they’d be over and I’d miss it all and then I’d end up with NO pictures anyway and the whole thing would’ve been pointless. Of course, if I’d just gone home when I first thought, “I should go home and get the camera,” I would’ve had plenty of time. Oh well…

Austin’s biggest fireworks display is on Town Lake, near downtown. Rick and I went once, I think either right before we got married, or the year after we got married. We arrived early, and found a great parking space in an empty lot, where we figured we’d be able to see the fireworks from the bed of Rick’s pickup truck. Now, Austin is known as “the live music capital of the world,” and at any time on any day, you can find a club or bar with just about every kind of live music act you can imagine. Back on that July 4th near Town Lake, we happened to park in a lot behind a place called Liberty Lunch. Liberty Lunch (which has since been swallowed up by Austin’s downtown expansion) was a well-known live music venue, and it probably featured all kinds of different music at various times. However, on THAT particular day, it seemed to be home to some kind of alternative practice session. As the skies darkened and we settled into the back of the truck to listen to the Austin Symphony perform the 1812 Overture, an amazingly discordant noise emanated from the little club behind us. Fortunately, instead of having to endure an entire song (song? I’m not actually sure that’s what I would call it…), the noise stopped after a few seconds. However, every few minutes, another loud burst of some sort of instrumentation would be forced through the walls of Liberty Lunch. Eventually it stopped – just about the time the fireworks started. Maybe the musicians (again, I’m using the term loosely) wanted to watch, as well.

But even with the Liberty Lunch cacophony, the fireworks display was great and the whole night was a lot of fun. Until we got in the truck to head for home. That was the one and only time in my life I’ve actually experienced gridlock. And I’ve been to New York City dozens of times… I’ve been to Chicago… in fact, I’ve been to all kinds of big cities. Miami, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix… even Rome – and I’ve never actually seen the kind of traffic I saw in downtown Austin that night. (Okay, I’m willing to bet there’s some pretty serious traffic in Washington D.C. – I’ve never been downtown in that city, but just driving AROUND it is totally insane. You can get caught up in crawling highway traffic at 7:00 on a Sunday night…) Anyway, everyone who’d been down on the lake to watch the fireworks must’ve got into their cars and driven for home at exactly the same time. The gridlock was really interesting… all traffic lights had ceased to possess any sort of meaning whatsoever, instead simply reflecting the reds and greens and yellows of the fireworks display we’d just seen. I’m not even sure how we got out of there, ultimately. I suppose even with cars basket-weaved across intersections, logic would dictate that all those vehicles had to move somewhere eventually.

Judging by the silence outside my window, it would seem that my neighbors have run out of firecrackers. So that would be my cue to head off to bed for the night. I hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July!