Given our wildfire risks in Colorado, I damned well better not hear any. Police will come out and ticket because it is a big damned deal.

To wit.

https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article315862688.html


But yeah, it's kinda weird.

Only funeral i know of with fireworks was Charlie Kirk, so there's that.

zero critical thinking skills

In my old age, I am learning how to hate people.

Over a month before July 4 and Arizona is getting constant fire weather warnings. Memorial Day is a day for reflection on sacrifice, not 'hey, dudes, let's par-TAE!'

celebrating Memoria Day. The day's events had march and car parade by VFW's, including some from WW1.

Scared my dog. There better not be any tonight.

by fireworks or thunder. About 5-6 years ago, she started being scared. Now she's 15 and in the last four years I can barely get her to step outside to go potty. I have to put her in the interior bathroom, take a noisy fan in there and turn on the radio. That's where she stays in a storm and July 4th.

My soon-to-be 3 year old mutt doesn't yet give a damn about loud noises. Maybe because she's usually the loudest one around.

Ours hides under the bed.

That’s who.

I’m hoping it’s dumb kids and not some drunk MAGA jerk celebrating warfare like his HEro, Whiskey Pete.

I think decades of treating Memorial Day as a day for sales on everything from mattresses to cars to appliances has beaten down people's memories of what the holiday is all about. Few people seem to have experienced the loss of a loved one in wartime. That's good, of course, but we still need to be aware of what the meaning of the day is.

it breifly tripped the electricity off in my neighborhood.

Does anybody know if Faux News or some other putrid magasphere propaganda outlet told them to do that? It wreaks of maga fake patriotism.

Last edited Mon May 25, 2026, 11:02 PM - Edit history (1)

.... gathering. The adults were all sitting around a table, enjoying small talk while the cooker heated up to cook hot dogs and hamburgers. Some of the women were starting to uncover the dishes they had prepared. The kids were told to go off and play, dinner would be sometime soon. One of my older cousins had managed to get some firecrackers.

We were some distance away from the adults when we lit a string of firecrackers and threw them on the ground in the direction of the adult table. We wait for the anticipation for them to start going off. Within seconds of them starting to bang, bang, bang, and smoke, we noticed a commotion at the adult table. One of our soft-spoken uncles had dove under the table face down with his hands interlocked on the back of his head.

When the loud bangs stopped, we all looked over to see the other adults try to talk our uncle out from under the table. He finally came out, obviously shaken and scared. Finally, one of the adults came over to where we kids were gathered and told us No more firecrackers.

We were later told he had battle fatigue, what we now call PTSD, as he had fought and survived the Battle of the Bulge. Where many of his fellow soldiers had died.

Never again at a family outdoor cookout did we let off firecrackers.

Although many of the adults had fought in World War II, including my dad. His tour was as a radioman who spent 18 months "22" miles up the Amazon river on a clandestine radio site in the jungle intercepting German U-boat signals. I later found out it was a top-secret operation using what is now called HUFF DUFF. It used new technology to triangulate the location of the German U-boats in coordination with other clandestine radio sites all along the eastern border of South America. Once located, they would dispatch torpedo-carrying planes to attempt to sink the U-boats.

The German U-boats were in the South Atlantic Ocean hunting supply ships supporting our troops that wer fighting Rommel in North Africa.

For an actual story about the use of Huff Duff, read a 2024 book titled Codename Nemo by Charles Lachman. For more on the actual technology, read Secret Weapons (U.S. High-Frequency Direction Finding in the Battle of the Atlantic), aka Huff Duff, written by Kathleen Broome Williams, 1996

It's late and my mind did not associate Memorial Day with fireworks. I wondered if it was gunshots at first but then I could hear the streak sound after each boom.

and for all the animals. I want to smack the selfish, inconsiderate jerks.

I also am annoyed by those who say "Happy Memorial Day".

The DUer is from a deep red county to the east of Pittsburgh.

I do not understand the fireworks compulsion either.

an idiot who says, "Happy Memorial Day!"

...often enough that she remembers our names, wished us a "Happy Memorial Day" when we were there today. I (politely, I hope) replied, "How about "Solemn Memorial Day?"

When they open, I'm buying a box load of load, flashy pyrotechnics.

When Trump dies, is impeached, is forced out under the 25th Amendment, or a new President is sworn in, I'm setting them off at nightfall. The local cops can come and raise hell. I'm celebrating a new Independence Day.

and feel compelled to treat every holiday like the Fourth Lite.

Try to tell them it's supposed to be spent in a cemetery cleaning headstones, pulling weeds, and planting flowers at the graves of our war dead, they'll just shurg, flip a burger, and think of the fun they'll have with fireworks after dark.]

And were being purchased.