Every year we went to the 4th of July fireworks display on the parade grounds at Ft. Sam Houston. Families with ice chests, lawn chairs and blankets spread out across the wide grassy fields. The show began with the hiss of a solitary rocket and the delayed boom as it spread twinkling across the violet sky. One year was exceptional. Instead of the slow majestic rhythm of the booms and flashes over the course of an hour, there was a brief but terrific crescendo of percussive explosions, and blinding umbrellas of light and then...quiet. The air was full of sulfuric haze and drifting star-shaped clouds of smoke. Far down the field, at the source of what surely was a most spectacular pyrotechnic disaster, the crowd was still illuminated by the red, white, and blue of the glowing firecracker flag.