Fireworks

We were chatting while the dance band took a break Saturday night when someone brought up the topic of fireworks on Canada Day. Barring another night of rain, the Canada Day fireworks display is always an enjoyable spectacle for me. I was looking forward to this year’s show provided by one of our community-minded entrepreneurs. To my initial surprise, one couple at our table said they never went to fireworks displays. Then the wife added, or air shows.

I realize that some people do not like the loud noises that accompany both of these events but somehow I thought this might not be the case with this couple. They were, after all, dancing to the somewhat overly loud music this very evening. You can view fireworks from a distance and still enjoy the burst of colourful light of a Peony Brocade or a sparkling, crackling Waterfall. Indeed, a Glitter Palm or the wonderful Dahlia are better viewed from a distance. Those who like the loud noise can find a spot close to the launch area and enjoy the Screamin’ Meemies or the explosions of the mortars and missiles.

I suppose Klaus saw the question in my face as I tried to think why someone would not enjoy a fireworks display. Those new displays where they pick a theme and even set the visual fiery bursts of gunpowder to music are really something of a work of art. For those of us who like fire and noise. As for the air shows, nothing gets my undivided attention more than an CF-18 doing an eight-point snap roll then cracking the burners on to spiral up into the sky. It may have something to do with being the parent of a fighter pilot, but I love air shows. The answer why this couple did not watch these displays was so obvious I ought to have caught it, but as soon as Klaus said he was born in 1935 in Germany, I knew for sure.

Klaus and his wife were seven and six respectively when the Allies started bombing Germany. At night, the whine of the sirens, the bursts of anti-aircraft shells, tracers in the sky, searchlights seeking a target, the explosions of bombs and the clatter of machine guns was the signal for the children to run for a shelter. What may have been a novelty when viewed from a safe distance soon became terror when the bombs were marching across the city or town towards you. The boom and flash of fireworks takes on a completely new meaning when it reminds you of the days of terror that are etched into your memory. When your first impulse is to hit the ground when you see a flash and hear a bang, avoiding fireworks displays makes a lot of sense.

It is comfortable for us to rationalize that the fighter planes roaring about the sky in an air show are just a display of the pilot’s expertise, but as Klaus said, they are killing machines. Fortunately, the vast majority of us have never had to live through an attack by aircraft. When the daylight raids began over Germany, Klaus said he remembers so many bombers approaching that they actually blocked the sun. They learned to watch for the moment when the aircraft released their bombs and came to know if the bombs would land close to them. Then you ran for shelter.

The child always lives within us and the experiences of war in childhood can affect us for all our days. For this couple, the memories of living through the war in Germany can manifest itself in something most of take as commonplace, pleasant activities: fireworks and air shows. Even as adults, sixty years after the events of World War II, their impulse is to find shelter when an explosion lights up the night sky.

Someone made the comment that the children now growing up in Iraq and Afghanistan will have the same memories, but Klaus said that although that may be true, what is happening there now is not war. Certainly, he wishes that all wars and conflicts would end, but the terror of facing total annihilation versus today’s surgical strikes in what is a police action cannot be compared to the horror of the mass warfare of the last century.

I suppose I may never look at a fireworks display again without thinking what it might mean to someone else. And I suppose that is a good thing.