The Fourth of July

I have many memories of the Fourth of July, beginning with shooting cap guns and burning something we called snakes on my grandmother's big rocks.

Years of flares and sparklers, which always terrified me in the front yard.

The year I went to the fairgrounds with a date to see the fireworks and one piece that did not burn fell down and landed on my head in the grandstand.

Years flying home over the fireworks and years standing at windows in my house watching them at a distance.

This year I watched Macy's live fireworks on you tube, then some around my neighborhood, again from the windows. And finally I watched "Hamilton" as the bombs burst in the air around my apartment adding atmosphere to the musical.

I can't help worrying that this is the last fourth of July our country may be free, that our president is trying to start a civil war to prove his greatness, that ego has finally destroyed the United States of America.