I think the best fireworks I got to see were while we were driving home from where we'd been all evening. The freeway passed by the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and theirs were still going. Many people had pulled off onto the edge just to watch. Then as we rounded our corner to get home, we could see that the neighbors had all had their own celebrations in their driveways. It's always been fun to sit on the front porch and look up and down the street.

But the dogs go nuts. That year, Alice had brought her dog over to our house and had kept her company and calmed down most of the night. When things finally quieted down, we opened the front door and let her see the world again from behind the baby-gate. Suddenly, she bolted over the gate and out into the front yard. We yelled at her to get back inside, ran out and chased her in, but not till after did we see that she had that quickly caught a large possum, now bringing it into the living room. Shrieks and yells at her, she let go. It lay limp on the floor. Larry swept it back onto the porch and we shut the door. By morning it was gone, thank heavens.

All the towns around Los Angeles put on various fireworks displays—Hollywood Bowl, Pomona Fair Grounds, most of the large high schools and parks. Anyone with a view of any part of the city can look out in all directions and see the explosions. We're up against the mountains that rim the L.A. Basin, and there's a large sand-and-gravel sorting tower in a river bed near us. Year round, there's a lane that runs behind our house, and one section with low trees, you can see the lights that are strung up all over the tall framework of that structure. As you pass by, the lights appear to twinkle and it looks, for that instant, like another fireworks display going off.