Drones or Rockets?
By
Gerry Niskern
What was the best fireworks display you have seen in your lifetime?
I would have to think a while to choose one in my memory as the best. My earliest recollection of the Fourth of July is of a homemade ice cream fest at our farm back East when I was a toddler. After dark the men shooting off big, beautiful rockets from the top of our hill out over the meadow. It was wet and green in the country side so there was no danger of fire. Someone put a sparker in my hand and I loved it!
Later, growing up in Phoenix, fireworks were against the law for the public, but the city put on a wonderful show on the island in the lagoon at Encanto Park. People relaxed on the grass in the area in front of the Bandshell.
Arizona had a ban on public use of fireworks up until about ten years ago. Due to a strong lobbying push the ban was lifted here and in most other states. However, one July, while it was still illegal here, a few of young married guys in our extended family decided to send away for fireworks. They managed to set our little North Phoenix Mountain on fire with their third rocket. Not a fun Fourth!
Today, many cities are cancelling regular firework displays and using drones to light up the sky. The bottom of the drone is just one big LED light that can burst hundreds of lumens of light. They dance around the sky creating illuminated formations. Many towns are hiring the drone companies to put on a safe Independence Day show.
In years past I’ve seen unbelievable fireworks taking place on yachts in Honolulu. The boats move out a distance from shore and begin shooting off their rockets. The sky and the reflection on the water is breathtaking. Later on that night, it wasn’t so much fun when kids lit a string of firecrackers on the floors above our room in our hotel and tossed them down. We were treated to loud explosions shooting down past our room all night long!
We stood in a park in Portland, Oregon one Independence Day and watch a spectacular fireworks show from some large barges in the Columbia River. Thousands of people on both shores were treated to a safe and grand show.
For many years, while in Laguna Beach on the fourth, we were able to see, in planned sequence, fireworks starting down the coastline, shows from Dana Point, then Laguna, next north at Emerald Bay, Corona del Mar and then finally Newport Beach.
Firework displays on the Fourth of July has grown in our country since the first festival in 1777 in Philadelphia. Now rockets are ordered for weddings, birthdays, after a touchdown at a football game and just about any other occasion you can think of. Disneyland spends between $40,000 and 50,000 a night on their fireworks.

So what is your favorite Fourth of July fireworks memory? You’ll have to admit nothing beats the first minute you held that sparkler!