It was a warm summer evening, on a July 4th to be exact. Around 8:30 PM, TLW (The Little Woman) and I along with my two kids walked from the parking lot to the grassy lawn at the town beach community house to view the fireworks display, a good twenty feet above the shore line on Lake Ronkonkoma.
The crowds were slowly gathering for the 9:00 PM display and I wondered how effective it would be with still some daylight left in the day. Families were gathered on blankets and lawn chairs, scattered over the lawn, getting comfortable with their ice cream cones and eager anticipation for the big show.
TLW always liked to take the kids to parades and firework displays, while I liked would rather miss both events. St. Patrick Day is probably the worse for me because it usually is cold and windy, and I get tired of viewing fire trucks for most of the parade.
As 9:00 PM approached, the crowd grew silent and the darkness had finally set in, leaving a blanket of glittering stars overhead, and great anticipation growing in their hearts, of what was about to occur.
Down below, on the shore of the lake, immediately under the cliff that we all sat by, we could sense the small fires being set for the first round of the celebration.
At the precise time the show was scheduled, a VROOSH, VROOSH. VROOSH in quick secession occurred as the show began, and the sound of explosives, along with the lights and color of the rainbow appeared directly overhead, taking away our breath and shocking our sense of hearing, all the while the smell of gunpowder permeated our noses.
All was quiet and still, suddenly a second round went off and instead of reaching the heights of the previous launch, the explosives went off prematurely, whistling through the crowds as the people were shocked and awed and very visibly shaken as the debris from the explosion shot through the crowd like shrapnel!
No one was ever touched by what could have been a serious tragedy, with the hundreds of people including little children!
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