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Foggy fireworks don't flop By Ulli Diemer
So it was just as well that last Victoria Day Monday, I didn't
know just how foggy it was at the waterfront when I headed for Kew
Beach to watch the fireworks. Because if I'd known, I probably wouldn’t
have gone. And I would have missed a special evening. For foggy it was, and the closer to the lake one got, the foggier
it got. But when hundreds of cars are all heading for the same place,
it gets rather hard to turn around. So we went. The beach was alive as I’ve rarely seen it, especially at
night. The boardwalk a river of people flowing to Ashbridges Bay
- wherever that was, in the fog. The beach itself covered
with little clusters of people, setting off their own fireworks
displays, lighting small bonfires, drinking hot chocolate against
the damp cold, or just watching each other. Kids with sparklers
dashing about between the groups. The smoke, fog, and the erratic lighting provided by the fast-fading
scraps of daylight and the clusters of fireworks (when one person
ran out, another one somewhere else started up the ones he or she
had brought) gave everything a quite unusual, almost eerie, atmosphere.
Something between a folk festival and an outtake from Night of
the Living Dead. I especially enjoyed the spontaneous character of it all - people
weren't passively waiting for the show to start, they were the show. There’s a bit of the pyromaniac in most of us, so
fireworks seem to satisfy a definite need. Especially if we can
set them off ourselves. It was a happy crowd. And when the “official” fireworks started, we all cheered.
(We knew they were starting because we could hear them.)
If you rushed up closer to the water’s edge, as I did, you
could even see the fireworks. For those of you who missed
them because you stayed at home, or stood a few yards farther back
- they were worth seeing. Different than clear-weather fireworks
to be sure, but striking in their own right. If it’s foggy
next year go down anyway. Published in Seven
News, June 18, 1982 Ulli Diemer |
