Greetings from beautiful unincorporated Snohomish County, where fireworks are legal and freedom burns brightly every Fourth of July.
Through sheer luck, I live in an area that hasn’t been annexed, so no fussbudget city council has taken away our right to celebrate Independence Day with a bang. On my street, trees are as dry as tinderboxes and kids are armed with incendiary devices, just like our founding fathers intended.
Oh, sure, some of you want to take our fun away. In the latest poll at HeraldNet.com, we asked if fireworks should be banned everywhere in the county. More than half, 53 percent, said yes, while another 15 percent said to ban them just for this year. Firefighters and nervous Nellies have made last-minute pleas to the County Council for a ban this year, to no avail.
Tough noogies. It was too late to change course anyway. Fireworks stands opened days ago and we’ve already stocked up, so the show must go on. We can’t put these Roman candles into storage until next year — those things are dangerous to keep around!
Only 32 percent in our poll said to keep fireworks legal where they’re legal. These are the people who know how to celebrate America. I’ll be out there with them, hosing down my roof to protect it from the aerial assault. We’re going for our third straight year with a sizable brush fire in my neighborhood, and the smart money says we’ll make it.
That haze of gunpowder and burning plant life? That’s the smell of freedom.
That fire extinguisher in my right hand and those bandages in my left? I guess those are the tools of liberty.
— Doug Parry
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