FLASH! BANG! Why Fireworks Aren’t for Everyone (Even If They Used to Be)

Fireworks shimmer over Higgins Lake, Michigan, across the lake from a Camp Curnalia beach. Photo by the author.

When you grow up in an American Legion veterans-only settlement, you grow up understanding a few things. Flag codes. The difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. And fireworks on Independence Day.

On the shores of Higgins Lake, Michigan, in a settlement now known as Camp Curnalia, small cottages crowd together among narrow gravel dead-end streets. Most of the inhabitants are seasonal — summer visitors spending weekends, a week, a month, a summer in the pristine cold-spring waters of Higgins Lake, where the water is so clear that the lake bottom is visible in 15 feet of water depth. Cottages in the Legion camp can only be purchased by documented military veterans, though they can be left to non-military direct descendants after the owner dies.

My father, an Army veteran, purchased our cottage when I was 9 years old, just steps away from his parents’ home. They had purchased a cottage when he was a child himself, moving permanently after they retired. We didn’t wait for retirements, moving up to our cottage just a year later and making it a permanent home. My childhood summers were a vacation bliss of beaches, waters, boats, and fireworks.

Nobody celebrated Independence Day like the Legion camp. Drunk uncles and goofy teenagers packed wagons full of recreational…