I agree with this 'Born Loser' cartoon, so yesterday I visited the 'Welcome America' party on the Ben Franklin Parkway. I've never been to this event before; normally we would go to the firework show held on the Delaware, 'cause you can see that from both sides of the river, but I'm going to Vermont this weekend so was going to miss that.
There is a very big crowd. It's quite the carnival atmosphere, with bible-thumping haranguers, veteran support groups, insurance salesmen, and of course food vendors. Plus a lot of 'gypsies' running around with a stack of coolers selling water and soda. Lots of cheese steaks, but no falafel (I looked). They are saying this morning that there were at least half a million just in the parkway area. There were also several large video screens around where people could watch the entertainment close up. I was actually kind of tickled when I saw people seated around these screens, because it reminded me of folks in their living rooms, but without the air conditioning.
Now, I don't actually like crowds, and the musical entertainment was aimed, frankly, at a younger audience. Plus the trees lining the parkway would restrict the best fireworks viewing, so I walked West along Spring Garden into the Powelton Village neighborhood. At 34th there was a great block party going on. The DJ had a huge set of speakers. How big? They wouldn't have fit in my van. I took a video. I'm sorry there's no sound, but my little digital camera only captures images. And anyway I've learned not to listen too closely to some rap lyrics.
One thing I noticed as I wandered around this neighborhood was that there were no bars. I grew up in a similar residential area in Trenton, and there was a bar on practically every corner. There were occasional stores where you cold buy beer along with other goods, but no bars. Strange.
In any event I got to meet and do a little partying with a lot of different people, since this wasn't the only block party going on. All in all, I walked over four & a half miles. By 9PM I had staked out a good viewing location on the Southwest side of the museum, where there were no trees to block the view. Most of the people around me were Philly locals, but there was one group of young ladies from China. Now we couldn't hear the sound system from this spot, but I thought there would be people streaming the show. It was a huge surprise that in that whole sea of smartphones (and the occasional tablet) no-one was listening to the show.
But it didn't matter. The firework show was awesome. You could feel the airbursts pulsing through your chest a fraction of a second after the firework blossomed in the sky. There really is nothing better than being there.
One final thought. Humans are PIGS! The amount of trash left behind was simply ridiculous. The detritus included all the bottles and cans, of course, but there were flip-flops, blankets, hats, and the occasional quarter. The strangest item I noticed was a child's safety seat. It took an army of sanitation workers (on holiday overtime, no less) all night to clean up so the parkway would open for Friday's business-day traffic.
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