Greg and I were somewhat ambivalent on whether to buy fireworks this year. Since coming from the parts of California where a sputtering hand-held sparkler is regarded as an invitation to wildfire to the parts of the Midwest where blowing your hand off with a mortar rocket is regarded as a ritual of manhood, we are rarely ambivalent about fireworks. I am not a boy and Greg is, so when we light the fuse on something that squeals up in the air 150 feet and explodes into beautifully colored sparks that drift serenely onto the roof of our 120-year-old wooden house, I sometimes can’t resist a choking “urk” noise.

But we’ve done it for a couple years and the house doesn’t seem to have gone up in a ball of flames, so on we bravely go. Besides, there’s the little girl in me that remembers when we used to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day in England and light fireworks like this. You know how it is with your earliest memories — they tend to color your perception of what is the right and acceptable standard. Fussy little “volcanoes” that shower sparks for a while and then peter out and look disreputable were hard to stack up against the memory of “real” fireworks.

But the big ones and the small ones — even the annoying ones that just pop or squeal and whose spent remains litter the streets today like road kill — have their place. They were all called for by John Adams in a letter he wrote to Abigail on July 2. I think most of us have heard the part where he told her he expected the day to be remembered in generations to come by ” pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations.” But did you know that before getting to that part he told her he thought the day should be commemorated with “solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty”? I had never heard it, and so insert my usual complaint about secularists taking the whole country to you-know-where in a handbasket.

But in any case, here (via Michael Medved) is the whole quote. (Fans of the movie “1776″ will be sure to recognize some of the words from John Adams song “Is Anybody There?”)

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these states. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means. And that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not…

It may be the will of Heaven that America will suffer calamities still more wasting, and distress yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case, it will have this good effect at least. It will inspire us with many virtues which we have not, and correct many errors, follies and vices which threaten to disturb, dishonor and destroy us. The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in States as well as individuals…But I must submit all my hopes and fears to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe.

Amen. Happy Fourth of July, all. I’ll let you know if our house and all our hands make it through.