The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I never cease to be amazed at the amount of money folks are willing to spend on fireworks for the 4th of July. Every year we hike on down to the bulkhead on the beach and watch the celebrations up and down Whidbey from the Head to Greenback halfway up to the top of the island, plus we can see a goodly portion of the South End here on Camano. Sure, the fire danger is extreme and occasionally some enthusiastic patriot will set the bluffs ablaze, menacing the mansions above, but in America, we still think freedom means the right to burn the neighbor’s house down if it was done to celebrate 1776 and the intention was strictly impassioned nationalism. Jingoism and extremism in defense of bottle rockets and liberty is no vice. And apparently not a crime either.

The year of the Great Recession I noticed an appreciable drop in the volume and length of the displays up and down the coast. Money was tight, folks were under water with their mortgages, collection agencies were banging on doors late at night — even patriotism takes a back seat to bankruptcies. But since then the duration and extravagance of incendiary proof of the American flag waver has gradually increased to something akin to mortar battles in World War Two, tracers flying through the darkness, dogs howling, babies screaming, the rest of us just watching the show from afar. Like I say, I walk down every year, my small patriotic duty.

So I’m a little troubled this year at what, at first glance seems like a diminishment of how much my neighbors are willing to spend to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, more or less on the 4th of July back in 1776. I know we’re a divided nation this year and yeah, none of my socialist libtard cronies would spend a farthing on a bottle rocket or even a sparkler or two, but c’mon, where are the folks who support the local church’s fireworks stands and Boom City down at the Tulalip tribe? The economy is cranking back up after Covid, but maybe the year of Lockdown took the heart out of the celebration. I don’t know. I sure would hate to think jingoist celebrations are on the decline. Or worse, my neighbors are financially strapped to the point they’d rather buy food than M-80’s. Or ammo instead of Roman Candles.

Course, I went down alone this year. The revelers at our picnic packed it in before dark, possibly hoping to evade the sheriff patrols for impaired driving, so it was a lonely vigil for yours truly. All I can say is patriotism isn’t what it used to be. But after the election and the assault on the Capitol, maybe you already knew that.

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