Independence Day overtook Halloween as my favorite holiday around the time I realized that most of the fireworks illegal in the state of Oregon could easily be purchased across the Columbia River. While even those cheesy snake tabs are strictly forbidden in places like New York City, mortars and $150 extravaganzas can found in countless retailers in Vancouver, Washington in the weeks leading up to the 4th. This year, due to poor planning and head-butting among various family members, I was set to spend the 4th watching Fort Vancouver's annual fireworks display on TV. In a last ditch effort to celebrate our forefather's stand against taxes on their tea, I sent off a series of emails to my sister, currently a student at the University of Oregon. Having been schooled in the art of guilt trips by my mother, one of the world's finest, I unleashed a flurry of electronic pouting and moral obligation allegations. A few short hours later, she caved. In the morning we would meet at our parents house to hijack their cherry red convertible, perpetually locked in the garage like a veal calf. From there, we would join up with them at the Tolovana Inn in Cannon Beach. This was to be a brief ode to the family trips from our childhood-a big ol' happy get-together that would no doubt be torn asunder by bickering...like all those family trips from our childhood. There was just one little problem. No one had thought to pick-up so much as a sparkler. Hitting the beach without a full cache of illegal explosives would be like going to an orgy without genitals. Every year on the 4th for decades, that stretch of coastline becomes a cacophony of multi-colored explosions; a patriotic, G-rated melee reminiscent of the bridge scene in Apocalypse Now. With barely an hour to go before Vancouver's stands closed, I headed for the border. Crossing over the Columbia was like entering a strip mall war zone. Someone on a boat near the bridge was sending mortars into the sky, as if to mock those watching across the way in Jantzen Beach. Vancouver loves fireworks and treats Independence Day like Christmas, Easter and Yom Kippur all rolled into one. Fort Vancouver is overtaken by 70,000 revelers during the holiday, all there to enjoy what is sold as the biggest fireworks display west of the Mississippi. The neighboring state to south loses millions of dollars in revenue each year due to its strict regulations.
The night sky was lit up with blasts of phosphorus but the 4th was still two hours away. The following night in Vancouver would likely yield enough neighborhood firework displays to light up the city brighter than ten suns. I passed various smaller stands as I fumbled my way towards Blackjack's and its 2-for-1 and irresistible 3-for-1 specials. Later, after my vehicle was ditched in the brown field surrounding the pyrotechnic-loving pirate's store, I took my place in a line no shorter than two blocks. Nearby, a beareded man was selling green Hulk ice cream bars as the locals clogged the land with pops and bangs. Up on the doorway at the front, a red sign screamed "FIREWORKS" with a string of white tracking lights surrounding it. Thirty minutes later, inside, the place was a feeding frenzy. My fellow patriots were tossing ridiculous amounts of rockets and roman candles into their black shopping carts. Children ran in circles, howling like excited chickens in no less than four different languages. Up near the store's ten separate cash registers, a teenager shrieked, "WE'RE CLOSING IN 15 MINUTES. NOTHING WILL BE SOLD AFTER 10:59. THIS IS STATE LAW!" This did not improve the situation. Fat mothers muttered "Excuse me" as they pushed past and struggled to understand the difference between yellow tagged items and red ones. I too was completely baffled by Blackjack's pricing system and just started grabbing. We were all acting like frightened customers in a Florida Safeway, madly searching for the last AAs an hour before the tornado of the century hits. My budget for this trip was $50 but, given the circumstances, I was completely incapable of resisting impulse purchases. I tossed in a $30 firework called "The Hot Tub" because the cartoon on the front was cheesy. An 18-inch long recreation of the Titanic with flaming smokestacks joined Ninja mortars and a cardboard goose that shoots fireball eggs out its florescent derriere. At the register, a guy with jagged teeth like a wolf that's been punched in the jaw a thousand times handed me a debit receipt to sign. The amount at the top? $114.79. Whoops. For spending over a $100, I scored another six mortars for free. Later, I struggled to haul a cardboard box with "CRACKLING ARTILLERY SHELLS" stamped in huge letters on the side. Closing in on midnight, I still hadn't eaten. I stoped at a place called Fat Dave's. The Fat Dave Special ran $7.50 and the waitress brought me three plates with hashbrowns, country fried steak, scrambled eggs, four pieces of toast and a stack of pancakes the size of my head. I was the only person in the place not capable of joining the AARP and the only male not wearing a hat. Eventually, a loud family wandered in. It was the daughter's 10th birthday and she scored a plate of b-day fries. The son snidely asked the waitress, wearing a pink sweatshirt with a kitten on it, if they sold fifths of Jack Daniels. She told him no. "That's too bad," he shot back. A total pro, she broke out a sharp verbal slap. "We only sell Jack in gallons." There was Celine Dion and Kenny Rogers on the jukebox. A glass window over a booth had the word "FUN!" written in blood red in the middle of a puke green circle. The family talked about the old Dr. Katz cartoon show. The chances of being fined for transporting illegal fireworks into Oregon is the same as that for being stopped for jaywalking. Nevertheless, the trip across the border always comes with an obligatory Mission: Impossible twinge. I kept the needle firmly planted on 55 all the way down I-5 into downtown and I'm passed every ten seconds. Near the bridge, a dark figure leaned out of a speeding window and sent a blue comet to space. Across the river, Oregon was dead and black. No fireworks. No bangs. This may as well have been an omen.
My assumptions are always wrong. As you cascade down from the range on US-26, about fifteen miles from the 101 turn-off, there is an old restaurant called Oney's. Outside, there's a tall, plywood lumberjack. I don't know how this family tradition started but every time we pass Oney's cheerful face everyone shouts "OH-NAAAAAAAYS!!" I've seen this sign at least once every summer for my entire lifetime. I have never eaten there. Shanna manages a quick, tiny "onay" before going back to her GBA. If she's psyched for this Big Fun Super-Duper Family Weekend she's hiding it well. It's only now that I realize that we've been mispronouncing the name of the restaurant all this time. It's probably "Oh-knees." We descend into Cannon Beach. Legend has it that an undead logger, wrapped in bloody gauze, roams this stretch of highway. Locals call him the Bandage Man and, with the use of his magical goul powers, he likes to jump in trunk beds and backseats. In an open convertible we're a prime target for a ghost attack. We get into town without incident. Maybe he took the afternoon off. Thousands of people are sitting on the sidewalks and we don't know why. Some of their faces are covered in star-spangled face paint and they all have sacks of candy. Two minutes later, our front bumper is a foot from the back end of a rubber raft. Two teenage lifeguards are throwing breath mints at the heads of spectators. Up ahead, the siren of an ambulance delights the crowd. Jesus Jumping Christ on Trampoline Pogo Stick! We are now in a big ol' 4th of July parade. And There Is No Escape. Most of them are convinced that we're the big finale. 1st graders scream for bite-size Butterfingers but we have only a single mint, tossed into the backseat by one of the lifeguards. Small-towners cheer us and mock our laziness. The cars up ahead are decked out in glitter and American flags. Their drivers are cheerful, waving clowns. They even have Dachshunds in cute little hot dog outfits. We have no Dachshunds. We have nothing. We are decadent hippies, Michael Moore enthusiasts, suspected communists - lowlifes to be ridiculed. A woman in a comical Uncle Sam hat shakes her head at me.
There is the $114 cache of fireworks but they deserve any of it. They've hurt my feelings. Worse yet, everyone has digital camcorders. Slowly we are becoming the final scene in dozens of cherished family memories. What I wouldn't give for a single, inappropriate thing to toss. Or the gall to put on the emergency brake, stand on the seat and drop my pants. With Shanna screaming bloody murder at my bare butt, we would be the top story on every affiliate on the west coast. "Strange, donkey-like 20-something moons crowd at small town parade. More at 11." Out of contempt, or possibly pity, they start throwing candy at us. Most of it bounces off the doors. Where is that shiftless Bandage Man when you need him? "Shanna, we're under heavy fire and these people want our blood," I declare. "The least you can do is get off the car, go to the trunk and get the camera." "Uh, no." Shanna has lowered herself all the way down her seat with her eyes just above the top of the door. She stares at the laughing, mocking crowd like it's a boring Midwest landscape but she's not taking any chances. A small blonde-headed kid jumps in front of us. I slam on the brakes. He rushes back but the car has crushed whatever he was going for. The boy shoots me a blast of disdain. Many of these kids, most of them overweight, have a fraction of the candy that their smaller, quicker counterparts are now totting like trophies. I toss one, slumped in a lawn chair, a sympathy mint. He glares back. I implore Shanna to do something- to wave, or least make eye contact. She calls her boyfriend instead. At one point, with it held high, the crowd shouts and blows kazoos at his voice mail. "You're car is great," a drunk man shouts. "I love the phone effect." Judging by his voice he must have started drinking at dawn. Then she does something foolish. Now making an effort, she's halfway in the backseat, searching the floorboards for candy to give all the sad little fat kids in the crowd. What Shanna has failed to remember is that she's wearing a pair of tiny Gap shorts. I gasp and struggle for breath. For me, la butt-a de mi hermana is like sunshine on Dracula. I struggle to speak but I feel like I'm melting. The camcorders have turned away from the lifeguard girls to her Made in Oregon booty, now proudly, boldly, bravely held high in the air like Lady Liberty's torch. "SHANNAFORALLTHATISSACREDANDHOLYINTHIS WORLDSITDOWNRIGHTNOW!!!" "Why? You don't need this candy." How many wives have slapped their husband's faces in the past few days for using their 16x Circuit City lenses to zoom in? After a 30 minute delay, the lifeguards roll down a side street and we are free. We wind through hairpin turns and into the Tolovana parking lot. At the front desk there is a stack of white paper. At the top there are three clipart fireworks with a slash over them. Close by are the following words:
WHY ARE FIREWORKS PROHIBITED ON THE OCEAN SHORE OF CANNON BEACH?It begins.
WHY ARE FIREWORKS PROHIBITED ON THE OCEAN SHORE OF CANNON BEACH?"Fireworks can be great fun to watch. They are exciting to set off. They are an integral part of many celebrations. So why are they prohibited on the ocean shore in Cannon Beach?Visitors to Cannon Beach are able to share the ongoing marvels of nature on our beaches because we take the stewardship of these resources to heart. Our goal is proactive protection. Loud explosions, starling pops and ricocheting pieces of fireworks evoke a fear response in the bird populations. Sudden bursts of light, smoke and fireworks "shrapnel" in the air are dangerous to and unexpected by wildlife. Their reactions and responses may cause death of injury to the animal, bird or marine life." And it goes on there. With all due respect to the seagulls I cheerfully threw bread to as a child (they rarely ate it), this is absurd. The sanctuaries in question are located on the crests of two large monoliths, Haystack Rock and another further down the shoreline. The nesting areas on these rocks are well over ten stories from the sand and not even a bazooka could reach them. Seagulls, puffins and the like don't typically fly around at night. In regards to the "loud explosions, etc," the wildlife that lingers on shores besides this boom town has endured far worse than a few hours of bottle rockets once a year. They've been battered by harsh Pacific storms, seen a good portion of their habitat replaced by million dollar homes, have choked on countless pieces of trash washed ashore from far-flung locales and have endured years of smog, off-leash dogs, oily run-off rainwater bogs and driftwood logs. Three hours of patriotism should seem pretty weak in comparison. This new ordinance immediately struck me as fishy. Tourists have been shooting off fireworks on the shores of Cannon Beach for decades. Was there something more behind this than a few well-meaning citizens and their concern for their fine-feathered neighbors? Who was behind the fireworks ordinance? Could it have been the teenagers that volunteer at the edge of Haystack Rock and try to keep visitors from playing with the starfish? Or the "locals" that shell out 6-figures for beach cottages? A Cannon Beach Gazette story, published on July 1st, points to city officials and "wildlife lovers." In recent years, battle lines have been drawn in the town between residents and the tourists and knickknack shops on Hemlock Ave, the city’s main drag, that rely on their out-of-town dollars. Last April, a cover story in the Gazette focused on an ongoing debate over a ban on short-term rental properties. Tired of tourists storming their neighborhoods, a group of locals were seeking to stretch the placidity they enjoy during the off-season to the summer months. Understandable, but what they've failed to acknowledge is: A: For almost a hundred years Cannon Beach has served as an oceanside getaway for tourists from as far away as Tokyo. B: The income their neighbors draw from renting their homes helps to pay the community's astronomical property taxes. From an outsider's perspective, the birds seemed like only the latest attempt by local property owners to chase away riff-raff; riff-raff that brings with it millions of dollars to their community annually. Are the citizens behind the rental property proposal and the anti-fireworks ordinance the sort that make their living rolling Haystack Bread at the Cannon Beach Bakery or selling rock candy at Bruce's Candy Kitchen? Doubtful. Since the town's strict regulations on property development prevent high-density residential dwellings from being built within city limits, many of Cannon Beach's wage slaves no doubt commute in from nearby Seaside every morning.
When a century-old grocery store was set to be demolished last fall, the oldest building in Cannon Beach, only few residents pushed to have it protected under a historic structure stip. It's since been replaced with a garish boutique strip mall. With firework ordinances and other strict regulations intended to chase away tourism, Cannon Beach may one day become the Oregon-equivalent of Malibu. Some might say it already is. For someone like myself, who can't afford a million dollar home, detests tacky, $10,000 wolf sculptures and has been coming to Cannon Beach while I was still the womb, the community's slow, 180 turn comes across as an example of gentrification at its most wicked. Using an enviornmentalism as a weapon to chase away what property owners perserve to be undeseriables is revolting. Any day now, these same residents will be clamoring to block public access points to the shore. There's an excellent Sunday Oregonian story in this ongoing power struggle, or at least an excellent thesis paper, but I obviously don't have the connections or time to pour over newspaper archives to make either happen. Cannon Beach is only one of countless examples of the gentrification parade that's been stomping all over the northern part of the state in recent years.
As day turned to dusk, my family and a thousand others are lingering around campfires like revolutionaries in war paint outside a tea boat. Behind nearly every drift log and fold-up beach chair there's a stack of fireworks. Our eyes scan for beach patrol trucks and we're laughing. There's no way Cannon Beach's police department, which employs, maybe, a dozen people, will be able to crack down on all of us. When the sun finally dipped below the edge of the Pacific, the beach will be filled with the "whoosh!" of blazing mortars and the patriot screeching of countless Whistling Petes. "Captain America" is a middle-aged super-patriot with a passion for low-budget pyrotechnics that dwarfs my own. Every year he digs a trench lined with tiny American flags with his teenage sons. Tonight he's wearing a bald eagle tank top and slamming canned Budweisers with his brood. Since he always drops well over a grand on rockets, their beer-soaked display is an annual highlight. Five years ago, one of his kids almost set the Tolovana Inn on fire when a Saturn Missile launcher fell over, sending fifty missiles into a second-story screen door. A year later he almost killed Shanna with a defective bottle rocket. If every visitor to the beach were like him, I would sympathize with the locals and their efforts to turn the town into a north coast Malibu. The Captain is usually a subject of scorn for everyone that makes the mistake of setting up camp within range of the Captain America family trench. Tonight, he has the potential to make up for years of sloppy hijinks. He will no doubt be our shinning star- a George Washington for Cannon Beach's firework guerillas. With a case of American suds powering through his veins, he will not hesitate to defy the local ordinance to defend his God given right to fill the night sky with florescent flames. As it gets darker the mood gets tenser. It feels like Hoth in the moments before the Empire show up on that frozen plain. The police roll down to the sand off a boat access point. At their disposal are two trucks and a dune buggy. The three vehicles break up. The crowd jeers at this tiny battallion. Already gone is the warm vibe and good ol' fashioned fun of past Independence Day celebrations. We're all criminals. This is a tinder box standoff waiting for a single spark to turn this into a full scale war. A purple mortar goes up. Several hundred people cheer. The first shot has been fired. A truck does a 180 turn in the sand and bombs down the shore to ticket the culprit. Another family lights sparklers. Neon comets fly in every direction. Captain America joins the fray and lights off a series of mortars. The war is underway.
Earlier that day, Shanna and I weighed our liberal dogma and nagging environmental ethos against our insatiable need to blow shit up. We're over half mile from both of the beach's bird sanctuaries. As usual, we will clean up our mess. If any birds have their feathers ruffled tonight, it won't be by our hands. Our parents have given their grown children their full approval. Even they, upstanding citizens, are itching to fight the powers that be. After watching several families have their 4th of July stashes confiscated, Shanna's forehead is so hot you could fry a dozen Cadbury eggs on it. This is a girl that once lectured me, in tears, after I bowled a pumpkin down a hill on a long-gone junior high Halloween. Now she's roasting marshmallows and quoting Mel Gibson's "FREEDOM!" speech from Braveheart. She's gone from being someone who throws away voter ballots to die-hard freedom fighter in the space of four short hours. All it took was the possibility of a Fourth of July without fireworks. We sneak up into a beach access point between two $500k homesteads. We're testing the waters. According to the fine print on the ordinance, we're not allowed to shoot off anything on the sand. We're on grass. We light off a mortar and assume there's nothing anyone can do about it. A woman's head pops out of a house. We figure we're in for a lecture but throws out a flurry of questions instead. They too have a cache of fireworks. We offer them our interpretation of the ordinance and two minutes later, her son and I are shouting "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" as we run away from loaded cardboard cannons. Soon, we are joined by a man and his daughter. He laughs like a mad scientist as a purple fireball explodes overhead. "He's a fireman," she giggles. With a professional firefighter on our side, a man who should despise these dangerous toys, our actions are now 100% justified. We are all stout-hearted patriots and the cops, madly to trying to keep a lid on the celebration, are heartless commie Benedict Arnold fascists with zero tolerance for all American fun. We mock their dune buggy and futile attempts to stop us. We are winning. They are scum. Shanna and I return to the beach fire where our parents are rolling their eyes and muttering at this Orwellian scene. At least a dozen families are shaking their heads as their fireworks are tossed into the back of one the trucks. The woman and her son have been nabbed. He hands over a grocery bag full of roman candles. Enough with this half-hearted dilly-dallying. Morale is sinking up and down the coastline. It's time to hit these cops with the strongest, most obnoxious firework in our arsenal. Our next move will be to light off a $30 display called "The Hot Tub." It will be a bold, blatant stand against this small town police force and the property owners no doubt watching the scene from behind the second floor windows of their McMansions. Two hundred yards down the shore, the dune buggy cop is sitting behind a dune, waiting for someone to do something stupid. A quarter mile away, someone does and he zooms off. We have two minutes, tops. With our backs lowered, we run down towards the waterline and I hum the Mission Impossible theme song. Let's see what these bastards think of this. The fuse won't light and we're losing time. One of the trucks is coming our way. It goes and a round of green fireballs blaze up into the sky. Good God, did they see us? We duck and weaving past families on our way back to "base camp." This is all tremendous fun. We're striking a blow for freedom. Our nation's forefather's are no doubt smiling down on us from Heaven. We are blessed. We cannot lose. But we've made a huge error. Neither of us have taken notice of a dark figure in a red raincoat, lingering at water's edge. The truck arrives and pauses a football field away. The plan had been to return to the fire, wait ten minutes, and go back for the empty Hot Tub shell. A cop hops out and grabs it. Shit. No one says a word. My parents, who have never, ever received anything more than a speeding ticket in their whole lives, are absolutely terrified. Being the stupid idiot that I am, I taunt the cops with the flash bulb of my digital camera, convinced they're after another family. A small man in a black uniform wanders up with a 1,000 watt flashlight. Without thinking, I jump up to greet him. "You can hand over the fireworks or we can start talking about penalties. The fines start at $500 and go all the way up to $3,000." I'm not about to hand them over. He asks for my ID but my wallet is in the room. I'm fully prepared to make this man's job as difficult as possible. My father rises and decides to save me from a stiff fine and a possible night in jail. The red jacket cop/spy has joined us. "They're under the beach blanket," he spits with a vicious grin. And I was really looking forward to lighting off the one shaped like a choo-choo train. We're lectured. The cop doesn't ask if we're locals. He immediately cuts to "Didn't your hotel tell you about the ordinance?!!" My father lies. "We hand delivered stacks of warnings to every place in town." Another one interrogates my mother. He tells her that he's a Vietnam veteran and that he hates having to do this. We are all criminals. The little cop goes off on a five-minute tirade about seagulls and local hotel managers throwing away the warnings to prevent guests from checking out early. The four of us nod politely and offer the cops a spattering of "Uh-huhs." Satisfied, they take off without breaking out a fine book. But they’ve cast a gloom over the evening. Beach fires up and down the shore are going out. Our brave stand against the forces of evil and neo-facist opression has lasted a grand total of 45 minutes. These five cops have conquered the spirits of thousands. Families with beach chairs trudge, scowling, back to their rooms. Somewhere in the fray, Captain America's fireworks must have been nabbed. I pass their camp and his brood is slumped in plastic lawn chairs, glumly staring at a blue cooler. We discuss heading up the coast to Seaside, where there's likely to be a Dionysian pyro ogry in full effect. But the holiday is already ruined. We toss sand on the fire and wander upstairs to watch the Twilight Zone marathon. Somewhere, Ben Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt, John Wayne and Ronald Reagan are shaking their dead, proud heads.
EPILOGUE:Considering the town's namesake, a military weapon, adds an additional level of weirdness to the ban. Several thousand family traditions were probably ruined on that Fourth of July night. There's no telling how much an incident like this might cost Cannon Beach's economy. Next year, the unthinkable may happen. There may actually be a "vacancy" sign in a hotel window on the 4th. Joking aside, Cannon Beach's transformation from family getaway to playground for millionaires is nearing completion. As the community continues to crack down on short term house rentals and as the price of hotel rooms continue to inch above the $200 mark, middle-class tourists will have to head elsewhere. On one hand, the birds that reside on Haystack Rock won't have their sleep interrupted by mortar shells next year. On the other side, they may soon be priced out of their nests.
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