Peter Schorsch
The rockets offered no red glare.
The bombs did not burst in the air.
After a wide band of afternoon thunderstorms drenched Tampa Bay on Wednesday, fireworks displays in St. Petersburg and Gulfport did not go off as planned, while the show in Tampa was cut short.
The City of St. Petersburg pulled the plug on the Fireworks Across the Bay Celebration due to “technical difficulties,” officials posted on social media. Needless to say, that deflated the enthusiasm of thousands of spectators hoping for a grand finale to their Independence Day celebrations.
Across the bay, fireworks over the Tampa Riverwalk garnered bad reviews online, reports the Tampa Bay Times. It was the same case on July 4 last year, when a computer glitch interrupted the grand finale, leaving the show’s audience underwhelmed.
Here’s where it’s appropriate to insert a “you had one job” meme. After all, we’re talking about fireworks.
These pyrotechnic devices have been around for more than 1,200 years (thanks Wikipedia!), dating back to the 9th-century Chinese Tang dynasty.
The art and science of fireworks haven’t changed much since then. You put some sort of combustible material in a paper or pasteboard tube, you launch or mortar the tube into the sky, it explodes, and everyone goes, “Oooh! Ahhhh!”
However, here in Tampa Bay — just 90 miles from Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios, where, each night at each park, there is a perfectly orchestrated fireworks show — the folks hired by city officials are as proficient as lighting a fuse as Wile E. Coyote.
Here’s an idea for next year: Have St. Petersburg and Tampa officials hire experts to put on their July Fourth festivities?
And by experts, I don’t mean bringing in a company like Pyrotecnico, the outfit hired to stage Tampa’s 2017 show. I mean real experts.
These experts were everywhere in my neighborhood last night. Up and down the streets, from their backyards and their boat decks, there were dozens of folks who clearly have expertise in lighting off fireworks. Undoubtedly, there are several of these living near you.
None of these experts seemed to experience any “technical difficulties” lighting off their fireworks, which they have spent the better part of the last year stockpiling. They suffered no computer glitches.
As for rain dampening their moods, the wet stuff only seems to encourage them.
What’s amazing about these pyro-magicians is that, unlike the companies hired by the cities, they start their shows DAYS in advance of July Fourth and are likely to continue them well into this weekend. If you have young children or howling dogs, too bad. This is ‘Merica, and you have no right to stop the illegal firing of fireworks most often acquired via deceit.
So for 2019, city boosters and officials should save some money and do a cattle call for every fireworks enthusiast to come downtown and light off as much stuff as they can as soon as the sun goes down. The organizers will still pay for the fireworks, but the hard part — you know, the Wile E. Coyote part — will be left to the experts.
That, or we can just hire Tampa-based political consultant Anthony Pedicini, who, along with his family, is as good as lighting up the sky as he is lighting up one of his political opponents.
Just look at the arsenal the Pedicinis assembled:
