Driving home from a Fourth of July party way out in BF County the other night, I heard what had to be one of radio's more ignorant moments. The station's promo was read at the end of a commercial break: "Apple pie, The Star Spangled Banner, great music from the 60's and 70's - Celebrating American Independence all night long." The very next song played was the Beatles' Help.

But not to worry, soon after, as I was coming over a rise in the expressway, the city laid out in front of me, fireworks, no doubt illegal, exploding at all points of the vista, I heard Tommy James & Shondells' Crimson and Clover. It's smooth climbs to bursts of sound and that whole staccato version of the chorus, a true complement for the fireworks. And once again I had to take a mental moment, an introspective pause, and acknowledge how much I love the Fourth of July.

But why? Why, out of all the excuses to take off work, do I single out the Fourth? The only holiday where it is acceptable to combine large amounts of alcohol and barbeque induced sleep coma with gunpowder; the only holiday where everyone eats the way most men want to eat all the time, where "salad" is prefaced by "potato"; an entire holiday dedicated to the kicking of England's ass. Well I ask you, why not like this holiday?

Another interesting thing I've noticed: the Fourth is a time when it is okay to revert back to Christmas as a baby, where what is in the box is not nearly as important as the box itself. We all joke about how babies would rather play with the box and wrapping paper and ribbons more than the toy. It is the same way with grown men and women and their fireworks. Who cares what the thing does, it's how cool the packaging looks. A handful of sparks that shoot three feet in the air for a few seconds is pretty unimpressive, but as long as the box is brightly colored and says things like "Inferno" and "TNT Explosion", we will buy and enjoy them. So, it doesn't matter if we know the "Four Alarm Fire Log Cabin" is nothing more than a small cardboard box that lights on fire and sputters through a small amount of gunpowder, we'll think it is the coolest thing since that Easy Bake Oven we only used once. But hell, that Easy Bake Oven box made one hell of a racecar / space ship / wall of a fort.