God Bless America

The band was playing patriotic songs.  The air was soft and warm, the sky fading to the orangey black of a city at night.  Soon the fireworks would start, and I was getting antsy.
Every Fourth of July I could remember, I'd been with my family and our friends in our hometown.  The shows had never been that big (small town budget), but they drew sufficient wonder from my hyper, sugar-highed, adolescent brain.  I love the Fourth.  I don't know why, we never do a lot; it's just really great.  I guess it's the fireworks and the barbeque and just the feel of it all.  It's hopeful and exciting.
This year I was especially looking forward to the fireworks show.  It is the biggest show in the state, a far cry from my old Mayberry celebrations.  I wasn't with the usual crowd; my family had moved out of state, and my old high school friends were a hundred miles away.  This year I was staying at the city home of a college friend.
Finally the band fizzled out.  We all turned our seats around to look up at the mountain where the show would be set off.  A building had been built in recent years between us and the skyline, but my friend assured me that we could still see.  I waited restlessly.
The high-pitched squeal, the pop and boom.  A shower of silver edged the top of the building.  My heart sank.  They called this "seeing"?  I could only make out the top half of the fireworks.  There was only one hope for this disaster.
I leapt out of my chair (my friend declined to accompany me) and raced down an ally cutting through the building.  The sky opened up above me and fireworks flared brilliantly off the mountain.  I stood in the alley, staring in never-ending awe.  I was still pretty far away, but I could see every bit of it, feel the distant rumbling.
Something was missing though.  I was alone.  No one with me to lie on our backs in the grass and "ooh n' ahh".  No delighted murmur from the surrounding crowd.  Just me and the lights, high and lonely over the city.  I felt a thrill of vitality and freedom, at the same time that familiar pit of homesickness sank down in my chest.
I pulled out my phone and texted my sister, watching her own fireworks show somewhere.
"Ooh!  Aahh!"