Okay, “hate” is too strong. We have mixed feelings for a holiday we both loved as kids. Now we are aware of dangers to our health, sleep, and wildlife. We have legitimate concerns about injuries and the risk to property. We won’t even pretend that the people making all this noise care what they are doing or know how to do it safely.

Gary set up a decoy fort on the sand out front (we don’t go out on the 4th anymore) in order to, hopefully, discourage tourists from building a fire against a new huge drift log. (It’s illegal to burn drift logs, illegal to burn a fire bigger than a beach chair, and illegal to leave a fire unattended, but that doesn’t stop it happening.) This morning the robins sang, the seagulls returned, and we hope our local bats are okay.

Gary also wet down everything—house and garden—despite recent rain, and he had the hose ready. As the sun set, we watched huge illegal displays to both the south and north and found the remains of explosives around the house this morning—fallen from the air—but no harm done. This year was not bad, but some years have been madness and the smoke so thick we could not breathe. This year, wind was on our side. It was only loud and ended before midnight.

It used to be just one local who had actual training and a permit to use the sort of fireworks that explode in the air. Those days were fun with local families sharing their picnics, and kids with sparklers walking along the shore. Now, it’s more like a war zone. I’m unsure whether anyone who actually lives in our community participates in the massive fireworks. All the local towns have outlawed fireworks, so they come here.

Portland’s Waterfront Park only had one casualty from fireworks, but the news this morning reports it’s completely thrashed. And yesterday evening a massive pile of dry pallets became a 3-alarm fire in Portland near the Whitaker Ponds nature preserve. Gary says, “Thousands of bucks going up in smoke.” Scary too.

A friend in California wonders how the same people whining about prices going up can spend the hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars on illegal explosives.

One local I know routinely took her dog out of the country to avoid the frightening sound. Veterans, too, suffer from the explosions.

We have had rockets land on our home, floating candles have landed in pine trees and on neighbors’ roof. They should not let the fires burn unattended or pile sand on them instead of using water to put them out. The covered coals smolder and stink for days. [I once blistered my big toes when I found a sand-covered fire the hard way as a child.] Once we calm down, we will begin clearing trash.

American flags flew in front of homes all along the shore, of course, but they were left up all night, which is disrespectful. People think liberty allows them to do whatever they want. And it’s true, so far, that we are a free country, but my freedom should not come at the expense of others. Neither should theirs. That mutual respect is an obligation of liberty.

“It’s their world; we just live in it,” Gary is fond of saying.