{"id":9420,"date":"2023-07-03T03:43:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T03:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9420"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:09","slug":"fireworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9420","title":{"rendered":"FIREWORKS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This weekend I was remembering a 4<sup>th<\/sup> of July celebration Melissa and I found ourselves in\nabout 20 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We were living in Indianapolis, not far from downtown. Nearby Rhodius Park was a perfect place to watch the official Indy fireworks without battling the traffic.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So as the sun set, we walked over with our toddlers in the stroller and sat at the top of the hill on the near end of the park.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We staked out our spot and spread a blanket, anxious to see our kids&#8217; reaction to the fireworks. But we didn&#8217;t stick around long. Within a few minutes, bottle rockets and other fireworks came whizzing through the gathered crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was impossible to know if the people\nshooting fireworks through the crowd were being careless, stupid, or just plain malicious.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The motivation didn&#8217;t matter &#8211; we didn&#8217;t want a family member taking a rocket to the eye and so we left.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think there is a reason why this memory has resurfaced this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps I am finding a symbol of my present-day experience of mixed patriotic feelings: the desire to celebrate the greatness of this country being frustrated by the fear and irritation inspired by the poor decisions of some fellow citizens.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This weekend I was remembering a 4th of July celebration Melissa and I found ourselves in about 20 years ago.\u00a0 We were living in Indianapolis, not far from downtown. Nearby Rhodius Park was a perfect place to watch the official Indy fireworks without battling the traffic.\u00a0 So as the sun set, we walked over with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9421,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9420\/revisions\/9421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}