God Bless LA (South Central, in particular)!

It seems that for the majority of my life I've held what you might call a moderate level of disdain for the neighborhood in which I spent my first 10 years. Apart from a short period of time in the early 90's when gansta rap was at its glorious apex, I would not have been enthusiastic about my time spent on Miramonte Blvd., off of Florence Ave. in the outskirts of South Central LA. My grandmother lives there, as do a couple of my uncles. I did a second tour of duty there when I was a more culturally aware 18 years of age, although I can't say for sure if a truly culturally aware soul would have spent so many nights on his grandmother's front porch, serenading the Salvadorian girl next door with sappy Eagles songs on his acoustic guitar while she waited for her boyfriend to roll up in his Chevy Astrovan.
But I've said too much, and got away from the point.
I made the trek back this July 4th, with my lovely wife and daughter in tow, to the palm tree lined, train-tracked neighborhood of my younger days. There are two houses on my grandmother's lot. My uncle and his family live in the back house, my grandmother and other uncle in the front.
We had a host of brothers, sisters, cousins and their kids on hand, carne asada grilling, and the pool table being dominated by my dad and cousin. One glance in to the ice chest brought a swelling to my chest and a lump to my throat as I observed the true representation of our great nation and in particular, this, my hometown. My Sam Adams Summer Ale (bought to honor America) jostling amid the ice-floes with Coronas and Bud Lights (representing Mexicans and Cholos, respectively).
It was good times all around, and I won 40 bucks in our Poker Tournament. But this night was destined for greatness...
Do you know what greatness smells like, my friends? It smells like gunpowder! The greatness was manifest when my uncle beckoned me over to a closet, opened the door and threw back a sheet to reveal about 6 giant packages of moderately illegal fireworks, $300 dollars worth, to be exact.
I would be remiss if I didn't admit to some reservation about what we were going to do. Wouldn't it be obvious who was shooting off the fireworks that were rising past the power lines and palm trees? Surely law enforcement would be on us before we could get through the first box! Ahh, how naive I'd grown in my years away.
When we finally got down to it, with the whole family perched on the porch or standing on the lawn, the sky was rent by the sound of twenty separate "fwooops" as all around us up and down the street, and on the surrounding blocks, shells of like dubious legality shot in to the air, soaring high above the tallest trees, exploding in showers of gold, blue, purple, green and red.
I looked around and noticed that every other family on the block was out, with tables and chairs, coolers and playpens, flashing light toys for the kids, enjoying the show. And this was a real show.
No Snakes, no Flowers, no two foot showers of gold sparks lasting all of 5 seconds. Roman Candles went in tandem with Black Mambas and Alien Mortars and Cannonballs. One of the packages even had sparklers! Real freaking sparklers!!! Not those awful cheap "safe and sane" ribbon-y ones. Real honest-to-goodness metal sparklers, the kind you could write your name on the street with.
About one third of the way in, we thought our night was going to end, when some knucklehead shot one of their fireworks right in to the fronds of one of the palm trees. I was ready to pack it in, but my uncle remained unfazed. When the fire truck rolled quietly up, people only stopped lighting long enough to let them pass by, and when they got to the end of the block, they got out the water cannon, but the fire had already died out after burning one or two fronds. They sprayed it down just in case, packed up and drove back slowly down our street, waving hands and flashlights in acknowledgement of our applause. And the barrage recommenced.
Our family never had so much fun together.
At the end of the night, everyone packed up, gave hugs and kisses and said their goodbyes.
I was nursing a singed thumb from a quick burning fuse, but was otherwise unscathed. It was truly a glorious night and I learned a valuable lesson:
Nothing brings family or a neighborhood together like bad-ass illegal fireworks.