it's fourth of july eve, or third of july, and firecrackers are going off all around our town, which tonight is monmouth illinois. a somewhat typical small town in that people don't have a whole lot to do so people load up on firecrackers and can't wait to start setting them off. it upsets the dogs of course. i was waiting outside this house in my car, and an enormous blast rocked the neighborhood; it took me a while to figure out that it was a firecracker. even now i'm wondering if maybe it was a gun.

a good half of the country is agonizing over an abrasive feeling of having the country taken over by the fascist wing of unjustified power represented by the supreme court and its intention to roll back years of progress in equality and women's rights. some are boycotting all celebrations just for that reason alone. i myself am uncomfortable with the symbolic essence of fireworks, which seems to say, violence is what this country is all about, but since it's mostly just a color display, i'll probably take at least one kid to the public fireworks display anyway. it's what you do. these small towns, there isn't much else.

not that that justifies it. sometimes i just want to take a deliberate quakerly approach and say, if we don't like symbolizing independence with violence, let's find something else to do. my wife says it's all about food - barbecue chicken, that kind of thing, and that's why we're cooking up a big thing. there are two other things that always fall on the fourth though, an annual quaker gathering and the rainbow gathering.

i have never actually been to the quaker one. it's in virginia this year; i can never leave the fam for a whole week and haven't yet been able to get them to come along for a week. as for the rainbows, i used to go to those, or did at least once, to the big one, but what i'd have to do is drop every responsibility and just shoot out to colorado for about a week. sounds like fun, yes, but eventually i'd have to come home.

a little whimsical dreaming about the vast expanses of countryside out there - and how most of it is only accessible if you have plenty of money. we've been living on credit cards already, no sense getting further extended. aaaach. fireworks is it, for entertainment.