I really expected this past weekend to be more eventful.  I’m glad it was not.  I really did expect someone to fire off a rocket and burn half the town to ground.  Why?  Because, in most cases, I would argue that we are surrounded by idiots.  I am very proud that for once I have been proven wrong.  Well, so far, that is.  The July 4th holiday is not over yet.  But I did not hear or see a single firework all weekend.  Has responsibility taken hold?  I know, lots of folks are mad as hell at the county and state for taking such drastic steps as banning the sale of fireworks.  But knowing a few people who’ve watched their livelihood go up in smoke, I understand the motivation.  The loss of grazing land is serious.  It doesn’t come back in a week or two or even a month or two.  This season and next are gone, finished, done.  Profits are lost.  Valuable grazing is lost.  Cattle have to be pushed out to market sooner than expected.  Remember the homes lost near Sheppard AFB in April?  If that fire had occurred at 1 am instead of 1 pm, we might have been talking loss of life as well as loss of property.  No, fireworks did not start that fire.  And I’ve heard the argument ‘well, if you’re going to ban the fireworks, why not ban cigarettes too’.  The last I checked, cigarettes don’t get launched 200 feet into the air and exploded.  Yes, some of the wildfires can be blamed on people throwing cigarettes out of car windows.  And I’m not a smoker, so if cigarettes went away tomorrow, no skin off my back.  But I don’t want the government to be the one to get rid of them.  I don’t want the government getting rid of fireworks either.  But this burn ban was driven as much by public desire as government intervention. In time, you can fire away.   It’s drier than dry now, though.  Just don’t light anything out there that goes boom.  Please?

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