July 4 in San Francisco, my tips, tricks and meditations.

Or, the community building aspects of pickup truckloads of illegal explosives shared among neighbors cannot be denied.

Watching July 4 Fireworks in San Francisco is a tricky matter. There are hills, skyscrapers and fog. And the real show isn’t the big one put on over the water, but the one that the people of The Mission do over their rooftops.

My first July 4th in SF was spent with some friends at the top of Bernal Hill, thinking we’d have a great view of the illegal small fireworks being set off in the Mission, and see the official fireworks too. Wrong: the fog rolled in, and we had a somewhat surreal experience of the fog being lit up by the fireworks underneath, and hearing the roar and pops from below it.

The next year, I got invited to a house party of someone who grew up in the Mission and now owns a house there. I brought over burgers (my suitcase grill top, all the condiments, and the secret hamburger recipe which, to this day all of the guests of the party STILL talk about that burger [if you ask nice, maybe I can make you one, too]).  After we ate, we drove with a trunk FULL of fireworks to a certain corner  a few short blocks, one of the 3 or 4 corners where people gather to set off fireworks. While we had a solid amount of fireworks, we were dwarfed by what was being set off by one of the houses on the block, which seemed to have a non-stop supply. On my way back home, I stopped at another corner, and saw some of the most fantastic and terrifying fireworks I have ever experienced. Rumor was they were imported from Mexico, but if you told me it was alien technology, I would have believed you.

This year, I was invited to another friends house in the Mission to watch the fireworks from his rooftop. I got there just around dark, and the sky was already lit on all 4 sides with a steady ring of fireworks. Being about 4 stories up, they were all going off just about at eye level. And kept going well past midnight! (Although, with the holiday being on a Wednesday, things seemed to peak early…) I love fireworks, but after 4 hours of non stop burst, even I needed to go in and take a break. Definitely, so far, the best way I can think to see fireworks in SF. I even saw the official ones this year!

As I read from someone’s post on Instagram “the community building aspects of pickup truckloads full of illegal explosives shared among neighbors cannot be denied”. There was a real sense of expressing a love of freedom in that neighborhood - fireworks are really illegal in San Francisco, and not one firetruck or police vehicle ever swung through. But they didn’t have to: the people were watching out for each other, being bold and civilized, and always someone was manning the push broom, pushing the spent cardboard shells to the side. Even more poignant in a neighborhood where raids by ICE are a real threat. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? For sure…

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