{"id":3526,"date":"2009-01-01T19:49:13","date_gmt":"2009-01-02T02:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/?p=3526"},"modified":"2009-01-01T19:51:42","modified_gmt":"2009-01-02T02:51:42","slug":"starting-the-year-with-a-bang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/01\/starting-the-year-with-a-bang\/","title":{"rendered":"Starting the year with a bang!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You will not believe what I am about to tell you.\u00c2\u00a0 I know that you won&#8217;t because if you had told me before I had experienced it myself, I wouldn&#8217;t have believed you.<\/p>\n<p>But here it is:<\/p>\n<p>The Most Incredible New Year&#8217;s Fireworks happen in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harahan,_Louisiana\">Harahan<\/a>, Louisiana.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Harahan, the little industrial satellite of New Orleans proper, floating along the Mississippi in the shadow of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Huey_P._Long_Bridge_(Jefferson_Parish)\">Huey P. Long<\/a>?\u00c2\u00a0 THAT Harahan?&#8221; <\/em><\/p>\n<p>THAT Harahan.\u00c2\u00a0 I know.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m still a little astounded, myself.<\/p>\n<p>We didn&#8217;t have the video camera or the still camera to really capture it, but could one really?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe, too, it&#8217;s the surprise of quality home-spun fireworks, coming from every vantage, that boosts the collective experience into something of legend.\u00c2\u00a0 All night, we had ventured out from Renee&#8217;s to watch her &#8220;redneck neighbors&#8221; light off fireworks (the phrase was used as a term of endearment, particularly considering present company).\u00c2\u00a0 And while they were generally good and impressive fireworks, we really didn&#8217;t think much more was going to happen.\u00c2\u00a0 But after listening to Renee&#8217;s insistence about how it was going to &#8220;knock your socks off&#8221; once midnight hit, we were convinced to go out again, in the cold, to see what would happen at 12.<\/p>\n<p>Most were completely illegal, no question.\u00c2\u00a0 Word is that &#8220;a place on the West Bank&#8221; can hook you up.\u00c2\u00a0 They weren&#8217;t of the same force of, say, of the professional rockets used in a major city&#8217;s display &#8212; only because they didn&#8217;t have the powder to go as high.\u00c2\u00a0 But they were that big.\u00c2\u00a0 And that colorful.\u00c2\u00a0 And with all the little trick fireworks that you see in the big displays: the multi-color blooms, the ones that sparkle, the ones that pop and then explode in a hundred stars, the zingers, the changing-color ones that fill the sky.\u00c2\u00a0 All of them &#8212; and with precision, overlap, and timing that one would expect from a professional display.\u00c2\u00a0 But here was the truly amazing part&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t just the 15 minutes of fireworks happening 20 feet away, filling the sky right above our heads.\u00c2\u00a0 It was that there were more than a dozen &#8212; at least &#8212; displays of the same type and caliber happening all around us.\u00c2\u00a0 Down the street, across the highway, a few streets over.\u00c2\u00a0 Filling the sky at nearly perfect 5 degree marks completely around us.\u00c2\u00a0 Surrounded by fireworks.\u00c2\u00a0 Everywhere, fireworks.\u00c2\u00a0 All of us stood in the street with our mouths hanging open, and as it continued, a few fell into impressed shouts and whoops, and a few (me included) into disbelieving laughter.\u00c2\u00a0 All Paul could say was, &#8220;no one will ever believe us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Indeed.\u00c2\u00a0 I know you don&#8217;t.\u00c2\u00a0 You can&#8217;t.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s just not possible.<\/p>\n<p>But you heard it here: Harahan, Louisiana is the place to be for fireworks on New Year&#8217;s Eve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You will not believe what I am about to tell you.\u00c2\u00a0 I know that you won&#8217;t because if you had told me before I had experienced it myself, I wouldn&#8217;t have believed you. But here it is: The Most Incredible New Year&#8217;s Fireworks happen in Harahan, Louisiana. &#8220;Harahan, the little industrial satellite of New Orleans [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3526"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3526"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3531,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3526\/revisions\/3531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}