The American Way: See and be Seen

It's summer. There are tornadoes around the state, it's hot and humid all the time, summer school is open (barely), and, the most obvious sign, the neighbors won't stop shooting off their damn fireworks.

Actually, with the rain the past day or so, the fireworks haven't been so bad. But this is what I don't like about the Fourth of July. I'm not anti-patriot; I'm not (entirely) a cranky communist seditionist. I just don't like the idea of people--kids, mostly, and some adults who should know better--running around my street and alley with explosives at all hours of the day and night. Can a man be faulted for thinking that?

I was actually hoping that since the move we'd hear less; it turns out our new neighborhood has more budding Tim McVeighs that the old. (Of course it could be population density: There are more people in this new neighborhood, especially families with kids.)

What really drives me bonkers, though, is the people who bring their own fireworks to shoot off in the park before the city's fireworks display!

Our first few years in Milwaukee, my wife and I actually went a little north to one of the suburbs' fireworks displays. There, of course, you couldn't do anything. You could buy one of those glow-sticks or glow-loops from the jaycees or whoever, but you wouldn't make it very far with fireworks there.

But when they started doing the little municipal fireworks at the park near our old apartment, we started to go there. And I could not believe what I saw: Kids, some as young as five or six, running around with sparklers and bottle rockets. There seemed to be no parental supervision at all, and these kids were just shooting off their explosives right there in the crowd. In the years that we went to that park for the fireworks, I was really surprised no one got hurt, given how close danger came so many times.

This year, at the new place on the complete other side of town, my wife and I went to a much bigger park, with what turned out to be just about as lame a display of fireworks for the fourth. (If you are not from Milwaukee, and don't understand why our fireworks are so lame, then I should probably point out that the big display gets done down at the lakefront on July 3rd. So the municipal displays are small and scattered throughout the city on the 4th.)

And here, at the new park, I saw only a few kids setting off their bottle rockets and such, and all seemingly under the watchful eyes of adults and in a safe manner.

What blew me away was the number of adults at the park, with not bottle rockets and sparklers, but with the real thing, shooting off their major fireworks in the middle of the crowd. At least three different sets of people were competing here for (in my opinion) biggest jerks: They all had what must have been many hundreds of dollars of explosives in their arsenals, and, as soon as it was dark enough, they tried to put on a show for the assembled throngs.

I admit, I only saw one pyrotechnic go awry and into the crowd (though it seemed to be into the crowd that was responsible for setting them off). But I don't think they could have beat the odds for very much longer.

And this was all prelude to the real (admittedly lame) show done by the city. But, no matter how much you lay out for fireworks, you can't get the real thing, and the amateurs--some of whom even kept going a while during the real display--to me just looked like pathetic, dangerous, wannabes.

What's the point of this? Who are they trying to impress? It seems a whole lot like bringing your guitar to the Bruce Springsteen concert: You're only going to make a fool of yourself, and piss off the rest of the audience.

I realize, though, that my take on things is not everyone else's. (It has taken me some time to learn that, but I do recognize it now.) I know that there are those who relish being able to blow things up, make a lot of noise, and who believe it impresses other people. And there are those who are impressed by these fools and their foolish actions. And it's my job to teach their children.

Summer school started today, and if I tried to enumerate all the problems, I'd never get done. But suffice it to say that I can see--and, even during the regular school year, I can see it, too--this same attitude I describe above. No, it's not explicitly manifested in the need to blow things up at school (thank goodness), but the kids--even though they are all there because somehow, somewhere, they have failed a class and they need this credit--are in summer school to see and be seen. It's all about whom you can impress and who impresses you.

Some do it with fireworks, some with short skirts, and some with a flippant, disrespectful attitude toward authority. (Now, I'm a liberal guy, so a good suspicion of authority is healthy, in my mind, and something I encourage in my students, but I do feel that, especially in the summer school situation we're in, there is nothing to be gained from challenging me--I'm doing the best I can to get these kids a credit they need, even down to making things considerably easier than during the regular school year.)

I should expect that the population of summer school kids would be more challenging than the regular school year kids, since there is no budget for enrichment here in Milwaukee, and, thanks to the Whopper's "No Child Left Untested" crap, there's not even money for elementary and middle school summer sessions. (I can't go a whole day without a dig somewhere, right?)

But even in these circumstances, I find it unbelievable that summer school seems to be little more than a four-week long social occasion for these kids. I mean, if I had been in their position--forced to go to summer school because I had failed a class during the school year--I would have been mortified to be seen there. I would have died if my family had showed up at the park with an arsenal of fireworks. I would have melted in a puddle of embarrassment if my friend had whipped out his guitar during "Born in the U.S.A."

I'm in the middle of T.C. Boyle's The Road to Wellville (see how it's all coming together, as I predicted yesterday?), an amusing look at John Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium circa 1908. I saw the movie when it came out (anything with John Cusack!), and picked the book up cheap some time ago, and I'm reading it now for some light diversion--not every liberal blogger has to spend the summer reading Hilary or Sid. Anyway, one of the pretexts of the book is that the Sanitarium is a place where the high and mighty go to see and be seen. It's no shame to show up and announce that you're sick as a dog due to your lack of "physiologic living," because it's a good excuse to hobnob with your richity-rich friends. (This part of Doyle's book is firmly rooted in fact.)

It's an American tradition, no less so (or maybe even moreso) than fireworks, to see and be seen, whether it's at the San, the yacht club, or summer school. That's the most pressing issue, the thing of most vital importance. Even when there are seemingly more critical things--learning American literature, their own and their family's safety, their health--Americans like to show off, and are impressed by those who show off.

It's why the Whopper is allowed to land on an aircraft carrier, or say "Bring 'em on" while Americans are dying in Iraq.

No more, please. We can do better.