By Dan Miller • Today's Family Editor

Some of my earliest memories don’t feel like they belong to a calendar—they belong to summer itself. Heat hanging in the air, screen doors slamming, and the distant promise of fireworks somewhere after dark.

For me, the Fourth of July has always been stitched together from a handful of vivid moments. One of the first takes place at Fairport Harbor Beach, when I was just a little boy attending fireworks with my family and the infamous tornado struck. I remember the sudden rain, the panic in the crowd, and my father rushing my mother, baby brother, and me into our ’69 Pontiac Catalina. Dad told me to crouch on the floor of the spacious backseat while the storm raged outside. Even now, I can still picture the glow of brake lights reflecting off the rain-soaked pavement. 

A few years later, when I was around 10 years old, my father somehow came into possession of a trunk full of fireworks. How he acquired them remains one of life’s great mysteries.

Back then there were no fences between neighbors, so our backyards blended into one giant summer playground. Word spread quickly, lawn chairs appeared, and suddenly an impromptu Fourth of July party was underway. The dads handled the “serious” fireworks—Roman candles, bottle rockets, and M-80s, which we children believed were basically sticks of dynamite. Our role was far less dangerous but equally important: waving sparklers through the warm night air while trying not to burn holes in our sneakers. It felt magical.

Some years we celebrated at my aunt and uncle’s house, where giant Fourth of July cookouts seemed to materialize effortlessly. My older cousins were the coolest people I had ever met. I was especially impressed by the elaborate chains they made from soda and beer can pull tabs that stretched across the basement ceiling like modern art. The next day, inspired beyond reason, I began building my own collection and strongly encouraged my father to increase his beer consumption for the good of the project.

Anyways, back to the celebration. Outside, the men would tie together long strings of firecrackers, attach them to a telephone pole, and light them as the grand finale. In my childhood memory it lasted nearly an hour, though in reality it was probably closer to 30 seconds.

Then there’s a gap in my Fourth of July memories—from my teenage years into adulthood—until I became a father myself.

My eldest was born on June 30, and we brought him home from the hospital on the Fourth of July. It was quite an introduction to the world. Fireworks exploded well into the night while my wife and I tried unsuccessfully to calm a newborn in a house without air conditioning. The windows had to stay open, which meant every boom sounded like it was happening directly in the nursery.

Before long, my wife and I had three children who were old enough to appreciate fireworks. Conveniently, my parents had a perfect view of the Eastlake fireworks from the end of their driveway. Dad grilled hot dogs while Mom prepared snacks, and we enjoyed the show without ever battling traffic. Eventually the fireworks moved locations, and my wife and I found ourselves loading blankets, snacks, and sleepy children into the car to watch from a dew-covered field behind the high school.

The kids eventually became old enough to wander off with friends before returning just in time for the big finale. I still remember the smell of sulfur lingering in the summer air, the thunderous booms rattling your chest, and the collective “ooohs” from the crowd as fireworks above and from neighboring cities sparkled across the horizon.

And of course, every neighborhood has that one guy.

The man who somehow transforms his driveway into a professional-grade fireworks show. Ours lived two streets over. His display featured towering aerial shells, vivid colors, and explosions loud enough to set off car alarms. To this day, I’d love to know what his annual fireworks budget looked like.

In recent years, it’s mostly been just my wife and me watching from our backyard. The fireworks are now a couple miles away—still beautiful, though slightly less goosebump-
inducing from a distance.

We recently moved to a new house in a new city, and I’m not even sure what our plans are this year. But writing this made me realize something I hadn’t fully put into words before.

So many of my Fourth of July memories are really memories of my father.

I miss him.

And maybe that’s what the Fourth of July becomes as we get older—not just fireworks and cookouts and neighborhood shows, but a quiet inventory of the people who once stood beside us watching the sky.

Despite how divided things sometimes feel, I still hope that for at least twenty minutes this Independence Day, everyone pauses long enough to look upward together—struck by the same flashes of light, sharing the same brief sense of wonder.

Because for all its imperfections, the first 250 years of this country have still managed to light up a few pretty unforgettable nights.