YOUNG AT HEART

         Forty-five years ago, ‘going to the fireworks’ meant a mile plus hike to Clifton Field, home of the Clifton Heights High football team. In those days adults had not tried to hijack children’s holidays, the way they now have taken over Halloween. Still there is hope; they have yet to grab the Fourth of July. The spectacle in the sky is for children and the young at heart.

         Much of the show at Clifton Field was ground works. The end was always a mock battle. There would be a lot of noise and through the smoke the American Flag, lit by sparklers of some type, would appear. The crowd, sitting there in the darkness of the early July evening, would cheer and then disperse to their homes.

         Clifton Heights High disappeared, merged into a larger district, but the field stayed and every year the show went on, but for most of us, there were better things to do on the holiday. There were beaches and bars to visit and parties to attend. If we watched the fireworks, it was sitting the mile plus away on a lawn chair, watching the aerial bursts. Only when marriage and children came along, did we begin to realize what we had stolen from ourselves.

         Lixie, my daughter, was a Bicentennial baby. In her fifth year, we took her to fireworks set behind Independence Hall in Philadelphia. There she learned that waiting for dark is part of the show. She entertained herself by wading in a pool supplied with water from a fountain, which like Clifton Heights High, has disappeared. Just as she was becoming bored with the water, the sky lit up. She spent the rest of that evening atop my shoulders, agape at the wonders she saw.

         The next few years I tried to fob off her yen to see more by sitting the mile plus away at her Grandpop's house. Here she could stuff herself with the cookies he fed her and see an occasional aerial shot, but she wanted the real thing, so one year we made the hike. For me for once, something was as good as I remembered from childhood, probably because it was the same show, ending with the battle and the flag. For Lixie, it slaked her fireworks thirst for a year.

         Like Clifton Heights High, Lixie disappeared, in her thirteenth year. Four years later her Grandpop went away too. My fireworks were now viewed from a great distance sitting on a deck watching horizons either in Pennsylvania or New York. Sound had always carried the mile plus, even if it were slower than the speed of light, but the bursts I now saw were silent, distant explosions in galaxies far away.

         My fellow watcher joined Lixie and Grandpop this past month, but just when it seemed time to retreat into adulthood, a new five-year-old popped up to demand her ration of fireworks. Here I am being facetious; this person is a child in mind only. In physical age she is forty-eight. She calls herself a fireworks aficionado, a word she has a hard time saying, but I know what she means.

         She invited me to the fireworks show in her hometown, but when she heard that Albany had a big display, she opted to visit here and see this one. What's more, I found that she is not just a fireworks fanatic, but she scans the Internet bulletin boards for other things to do on the Fourth.

         That is why at 11am I am driving her convertible over country roads to the Shaker Museum and a Strawberry Festival where the Declaration of Independence will be read. The land forgets it is Independence Day, decking itself out in greens and browns, but we don’t notice. We park in a grass field. A crowd has gathered near a barn, reading the document aloud together. They have reached the end and are reciting the names of the signers. Others sit around eating shortcake. We opt for the shortcake.

         This is American History in shorthand. Some take up the cause to protect others too engrossed in the good life to fight. Eating our shortcake, we do not thank our fellow patriots, but rather enjoy the sun, clouds and fields, the toddler in the blue dress who has run off from her family in a mad dash to meet Al Roker, the TV weatherman who walks about on his crutches from a recent operation. . It becomes time to leave. We take different country roads home; the supply of them here is inexhaustible.

         As late afternoon comes on, the weather becomes our worry. A line of thunderstorms will threaten Albany that evening, but forecasts say they should be out of the way by nine o'clock. We set off west on I90, top down, into a darkening sky. Even with my eye on the road, I catch a glimpse of lightning in front of us. My five-year-old is in denial, refusing to see it.

         We reach the point where we have a view of the city under storm. I suggest we put up the top and am given full command of the ship. I pull over and the top goes up. As we cross the Hudson, all Hell breaks loose. Lightning, thunder, rain, wind accompany us to the parking garage. A family is leaving, but we trod on. We have no umbrellas or raincoats, only an old quilt from the back of my car that stinks of wet dog.

         We take an elevator to the fireworks scene in the Empire State Plaza. The rain lets up and we find an empty bench at a picnic table. A soggy piece of fried dough sits forlornly on the table. The Neville Brothers have begun their set, a half-hour delayed we learn. They seem to go on forever. Had the rain not come, they would have finished just as dark descended, but it is 9:45 before the pyrotechnics begin.

         I fear my five year old will not like this show, but shortly I hear her voice light up as she tells me how neat it is, and later she informs me that we are coming here every year. Fireworks, like all happiness, are transitory. Who knows what will happen after the show leaves the sky? And yet, I have such hope this little girl will not grow up or disappear like the High School before her.