This is my city’s fireworks law.

Fireworks may be used only between 5 p.m. and two hours after dusk (approximately 11 p.m.) from June 29 – July 3 and July 5 – 9. On the day before Memorial Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, the day before Labor Day and Labor Day, the hours are extended from 10 a.m. – to midnight. For New Year’s Eve, the hours are 10 a.m. Dec. 31 until 1 a.m., Jan. 1. Anyone with a fireworks-related complaint is to call the Police Department.

The only actual part of this law that my neighbors follow is the part that says it’s legal for them to use them. What’s frustrating is as a homeowner I pay property taxes to be annoyed by the renters in the neighborhood whose idea of a good time is spending hundreds of dollars on fireworks instead of something to better their situation. The cops must have been pretty overwhelmed with all the calls of people going over the time limit. What a waste of our police force.

I sent this to the local paper: “This firework law is terrible. When the freedom to set off fireworks infringes on my freedom to a reasonable amount of peace and quiet, to not having my house smell like it’s burning down, to not having to go out and pick up the debris that landed in my yard from my neighbors fireworks, to not having my poor pets cowering for hours wondering how they ended up in a war zone, it’s gone too far. Did the brilliant people who passed this law ever venture down into a neighborhood like mine where many people on the block think this is just the best kind of entertainment…for hours on end? It’s not even one or two days a year, it’s all bloody summer. And apparently my neighbors live in a different timezone than me because it doesn’t stop at midnight. Even if it did, that is just wrong on so many levels. You lawmakers should mosey on down here for a visit, or I could record it and bring it to a city council meeting and let you listen to all the hours of it I had to. Get out of your pretty little burbs and see what it’s like like down here where houses are a yard apart.”

I don’t think I was abusive to anyone (except perhaps our lawmakers), I thought I stated my point pretty clearly. I expected to get some responses, I didn’t expect the nastiness of them. Like: “I never knew there were so many people here with sticks up their A S S E S. You old fogeys should really get a life.”, “I think you all need to get off your high horses and lighten up a little! Fireworks can be used safely, by responsible adults and people only have a litmited time to set them off during the year! This is a free country after all, why not act like it every once in a while instead of being fuddy duds and uptight narrow minded people and for the sake of this forum, I have used nice language.”, “Hate fireworks? Then don’t watch them or shoot them off. Geriatric loser.” Trust me buddy, I neither watched them or set them off but that didn’t stop me from being forced to listen to them. I have enjoyed going to firework displays over the years, that seems like the appropriate venue for that. Not to mention the at home playthings are little more than a lot of noise.

And then there were the political ones: “You liberals always want the government to hold your hand and impose on your freedoms. Sad”, “You’re right about what liberals do…..they take away our freedoms and tell us how to live. Those idiots don’t have a chance of getting into office here. You should move to California. Plenty of liberals there (although the libs bankrupted the state).”, “Liberals don’t like freedoms. They’re kind of dense.” To these folks, feel free to come clean up the mess in my yard.

I am not a liberal, in fact. What I am is a person who was raised with respect for everyone’s freedom, not just my selfish own. When they infringe on my own freedom, on my own property and in my own home, there is something wrong here. Feel free to set your fireworks off all you want, all day and night, just have enough respect for your neighbors to do it far away. If more people had been raised with that attitude we would need far fewer laws.

I suppose it was silly that the responses depressed and saddened me. That would be my BPD kicking in, me feeling invalidated. Well, I clearly was, but that doesn’t mean I deserved it.