Nope, not the fireworks, though shooting up major fireworks into the teeth of a thunderstorm squall, though that does make for chaos.
Hours earlier, when the Scott Avenue beach looked like the Fourth of July scene in Jaws, a two year old was digging in the sand.
And two year olds are really good at digging, and soon he had a small pool to play in.
He stumbled upon some horseshoe crabs, as happens often in early summer, and his Granddad buried them again, to await the next high tide.
And then, miraculously it seems, the pool filled with tiny horseshoe crabs, spinning and swimming and looking as exuberant as late June lightning bugs. They spun and swam wildly with an exuberance too many of us no longer recognize.
We tried “saving” them, most of them anyway. Hundreds, maybe thousands ,were sent into the bay.
And maybe one or three will survive the next decade and return to the beach as mature adults. laying eggs for a 12 year old child to discover again.