Earring 0037 - Fireworks

These earrings reminded me of fireworks. It's hard to see but there are silver flecks along with the pink and green. On a hot summer night, we could watch fireworks from the upper bedroom windows. You had to strain some to really see them but you didn't have to strain to hear them. I can remember being really young and only hearing the fireworks as I was falling asleep. For years, I was afraid of the boom noise that they made. Have to admit that I was afraid of thunder also. Somewhere along the line I convinced myself that thunder were the angels bowling and the lightening was when they got a strike. Maybe that's where lightening "strikes" came from? Alright, that's a stretch of the imagination.

We had a bowling alley two blocks away (you had to cut through the alleys and then it was two blocks). It was fine for us kids to go there and watch the bowlers as long as we didn't get in the way. Sometimes strangers would buy you a pop and you could sit at the tables drinking out of a bottle with a straw in it. I remember watching my dad bowl there. Bet my brothers remember dad bowling. I was pretty young when he couldn't bowl anymore, maybe around six or seven, if even that old. Dad had bad knees. Instead of inheriting money, we inherited bad knees. At least we inherited all the good parts of our dad too and that is so much more valuable than good knees.

Dad had a lot of surgeries on his knees. The hospital got to know us kids since it seemed liked we were always there. I got to catch Ed Sullivan once when he was there. He was just getting out of an elevator or going into it. Can't remember which. Something else that was cool was that they had a mail slot that was between the elevators (outside - between the elevator doors). People floors above you would slide their mail into the chute and down it would go. It was another thing in life that could keep me busy -- either that or it had something to do with watching people from different nations using the elevators. Every once in a while mom would give me an envelope to put into the mail slot. Simple joys in life.


I still enjoy sitting by elevators and watching the people come and go. Having a good imagination helps too because you can make up stories about the lives' of these people. Guess when you do that when you're younger, you have a tendency to do that when you're older. Maybe all of these people of different nationalities helped me with acceptance of differences and instead of thinking of them as being different, all I wanted to know was about them. As a kid, there were no language barriers when speaking with people from different countries. I met people from all over the world but it was mostly women because they would take the time for a little kid.

People are like books. They come in different sizes, colors, smells, and have different stories. It's when you open up them up and pay attention to what's inside that you can start to understand.