When we flew from Baltimore to Boston on the Fourth, the plane gave us a great view of the fireworks below.

The larger, higher displays were likely public fireworks. Then there were the occasional explosions, from I suppose, someone entertaining the neighborhood.

The displays got rarer as we flew north. After all, fireworks, except for those publically sanctioned, are illegal in Massachusetts.

Here is a story about fireworks. When I was in college I lived a couple of miles from a funky  fireworks factory.  Fireworks may have been illegal to shoot off in Massachusetts but they were not illegal then to make.

One day, when I was in class, the place blew up. People died and got hurt. Then, there were those fateful stories like the guy who usually went on the morning coffee run didn’t that morning. The guy who went instead was ok.

The place didn’t reopen.

We’ve gone to many fireworks displays especially when the kids were little – from the extravaganza at Boston’s Esplanade to the modest show in the  town of Chesterfield, population just over a thousand, to the one put on by the town of Taos.

(Course people with dogs hate fireworks wherever they are.)

And at our home … Our daughter Sarah driving up from Florida stopped along the way to buy fireworks, which we shot off in the snow at Christmas. In New Mexico we can buy them in the supermarket before the Fourth if we want although not this year because of the drought.

But this Fourth gave us another vantage point – from 33,000 feet above.