A lady grabbed my hand and began praying. That was the moment I thought I might be dying
I grew up in Hampshire, in the UK, in the 1980s, and still remember the terrifying fireworks safety videos from my childhood. They made dire warnings of death and disaster if you picked up a dropped sparkler or went back to a lit firework. Every Guy Fawkes Night, Dad made sure we watched the action from inside the house.
Here in Texas, things are different. I moved to the US in 2007, and each year, as the Fourth of July approached, containers would appear by the road, selling enormous fireworks to anyone, no questions asked. My American wife, Megan, was always safety-conscious. Our son was allowed a sparkler if he was lucky. But for our friends, you couldn’t celebrate Independence Day without huge explosions. We knew that the Fourth of July party we were invited to in 2022, on a friend’s two acres of land, would have fireworks.
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