A Belated Thought

It's something I've noticed for several years but it only just this morning clicked in my head and gelled into a concrete thought.

The City of Memphis fireworks display on July 4 is emblematic of City Hall's downtown-centric attitude.

Every year I like to watch fireworks on the Fourth. Where I live in Midtown I have a clear view right to the downtown and the river where the fireworks go off. Only problem is, they are aimed too low. If I'm lucky I can just see the tops of the really big Chrysanthemum Blossoms or whatever. I can hear it all quite well -- humid summer air carries the bump-pop-pop-pop quite well -- but even though the fireworks are aimed right over the Mississippi, they happen really close to the water's surface.

I'm sure someone has a perfectly good and reasonable explanation, like wanting them low to really impress the crowds. But so what? It's the City of Memphis Fireworks Display! What's wrong with letting the whole city see it?

When I lived in Birmingham, Alabama, the annual fireworks show was held from Vulcan Park atop Red Mountain. Red Mountain is an enormous lump of iron and clay sticking out of the flat ground of the City of Birmingham. It's the final outpost of the Appalachian Mountains before you get to the Mississippi Delta and the Alabama Wiregrass. Rather than hold the fireworks display in some football stadium or city park, it's put waaay up on top of Red Mountain, where everyone and their cousin can see it for miles around.

I lived in the shadow of the Vulcan statue. Walk out the front door, look up and behind you to the left and there he is on his lonely vigil. On the Fourth, floods of people would still come to the neighborhood to be right under the explosions, to feel them as well as hear them. My neighbors with the powerhouse stereo would crank up the radio simulcast until they got bored, then they'd play disco or R&B for the rest of the night. It was great community fun.

So why can't the City of Memphis loft our fireworks up where the whole city can enjoy? Yeah, I know, we don't have a mountain; we have a river. Still, that only means there's nothing flammable underneath to worry about!

So, why? Because it's all for the benefit of the folks downtown, on the RiverBluff, the RiverMark and on Mud Island and in all those rabbit warrens called apartment communities. Want to see it? Sure, come on downtown. Fight the traffic, the crowds, the drunks, the pickpockets, the parking, the waits. Come downtown! Maybe spend some bucks in Peabody Plaza or on Beale Street while you're stuck there. (Stay off the Main Street Mall, though. It's a bit dangerous.)

But share it with the rest of you? No, no, no. There's no money in that.