As the daughter of post-World War II refugees, I threw myself into the love and study of this country very early in life. What resulted was a winding road to becoming an American historian. It’s still a great love and the study of my nation goes on unabated.

The Declaration of Independence continues to be worthy of the great honor we (and so many peoples of the world) have attached to it. It’s history’s most quintessential statement of sovereignty, liberty, and equality. Quite something marvelous to celebrate. Once, too, the national expression of celebratory exuberance was special, unique to only certain critical and elevated occasions. Once fireworks mattered! They were the very material of the community’s party for a new nation or a new year or a great performance finale of Tchaikowsky’s “1812 Overture.” When did fireworks become so mundane and unexceptional as to have become a “right” for everyday, routine experience?

When did fireworks cease to be a special display of national celebration, becoming merely commodities of a desperate market overflowing with non-essential goods? In this case, goods that make tons of noise, leave behind smoke, smell and garbage, and disturb the general peace. The peace of children and elderly sleeping, of medically ill resting and recuperating, of veterans of foreign wars jumping with each blast, of refugees from genocide panicking for a place to hide, of pets cowering in fear, of wild things in the woods dripping adrenaline, of dairy cows in pastures nervous and trembling.

I suppose we all have the right to be bad neighbors, up to a point. There are customary and traditional social contract agreements concerning behaviors that “disturb the peace,” undermine health and well-being, and constitute forms of harassment. I know there are a few rules now, but they do not, I am sure, include fireworks being shot off at 12:45 a.m. on any ordinary night. I chose not to call the police. I can imagine how overworked they are on this one. And how about fire and rescue? For all the vaunted revenue resulting from our governor’s one “great accomplishment,” how much are we citizens shelling out of our tax-based public coffers to subsidize a class of private businesses that suck out more public revenue than they generate?

How many policemen chasing late-night scofflaws while thinking (as my husband would quote his Irish cop uncle), “How many little old ladies are being assaulted while I’m tending to this trivial crap?” How much city time, energy and manpower spent on calls, complaints, and debris landings on roofs and lawns? How many emergency calls for wounded youngsters (and adults)? And how could Westbrook’s City Council have permitted such municipal policy in the first place? Hard to put that cat back in the bag, isn’t it?

But I’d like to get back to my first and main point, having suggested ways in which minority liberty may undermine the equality of liberty proclaimed by the Declaration, in that community peace and quiet are also rights worthy of civic defense. Perhaps it’s the little girl in me, first American-born child in my extended family, who misses the unique thrill of the fireworks we all ran out to see in awe and gratitude on the Fourth of July. The proliferation of “routine” fireworks has vastly diminished the awe, and has certainly undermined the gratitude. To the fireworks libertarians among you, I have one concluding thing to say: Thanks a lot for taking all the joy and excitement of fireworks-as-celebration away from me, and I think, from many more of your neighbors.

Anna Wrobel

Westbrook