TJ-RV

Thanks y'all, aka cheers mateys, or diolch yn fawr as we say in Wales.

For years we used to join a number of boating friends on the water with 4,000 other boats on the 4th. Barron Hilton, the hotel magnate, has a house on the water not too far from here. Every year he hires a huge barge and a crew to put on a great fireworks show.

Hilton flies his family and friends to his island by helicopter, while his house staff put on a fabulous dinner (so I'm told). Afterwards, they sit outside on chairs arranged like a theater on the lawn. As it gets dark, all the boaters anchored around the island, most of whom have been partying all day, start honking their horns, impatient for the show to start. And quite a show it is too.

Some folks spend a week out on the water, just one long party. It's quite entertaining to see some of dinghy parades and the antics.

We quit going there a few years ago, preferring to celebrate more sanely at home with family and friends. Fireworks are actually illegal in this area (Hilton must get a special permit and probably has fire crews on hand), but we still see lots of folks setting off fireworks after dark as we sit on the back deck. That was one reason I was glad to replace the traditional wood shake roof on the house with something more fire resistant. I'm always paranoid about fires this time of year.

BTW we currently have 1,400 wildfires burning in the state, most started by "dry lightning" and fuelled by everything being tinder dry. Thousands of firefighters are on the fire lines, being joined by thousands of national guard forces. Lots of houses burned to the ground. That's one disadvantage of living in a wooden house; They normally survive an earthquake, but don't do so well in a fire. I'm hoping that we don't see more houses burn as a result of fireworks.

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Tom