by Matt St. Amand

Created on: February 24, 2009

Throughout the summer, for reasons I can neither guess nor discern, every weekend night is punctuated by fireworks. Sometimes it's just the anemic pop of neighborhood fireworks going off just after sundown for some kid's birthday. Other times, though, they are the full-on artillery barrage fireworks sounding in the distance; the din of thousands of dollars per explosion. Sometimes leaves me wondering what I'll find of the city Monday morning.

I went for a bike ride with my wife this morning.

Beforehand, as I pumped air into our bike tires, I saw our bland born again next door neighbor was outside with her son. He's an adorable little two year old who's apparently talking and running; a real little mover-and-shaker. I heard him speaking and making some interesting sounds, so I called over, neighborly, to her, "Wow, he's talking up a storm!" My neighbor gave a wan smile. I then commented to my wife, "Huh, the baby talks more than she does." Since I telephoned my neighbor and her husband one night last year, accusing them of being inconsiderate for positioning their hot tub underneath our bedroom window - and waking us up one night splashing and carrying on with friends - she hasn't been terribly chatty with us.

As my wife and I rode down our street, we saw the remnants of the Philistines' night-before. The Philistines are a gaggle of harmless, noisy beer-drinking neighbors who have turned their three or four properties into a sort of impromptu collective. Every weekend they light a bonfire in one of their driveways - why they don't go into the privacy of the backyard, I'll never know, other than to guess that nobody could observe them having their wonderful fun time back there - stoking up particle board and other assorted scavenged flammable objects in a metal fire pit apparatus. They gather around it like a tribe from ten thousand years ago, doing strange hoofing dances in the orange light, imbibing intoxicants, bellowing laughter over statements that are just not funny.

This morning, the driveway around Philistines' metal fire pit was littered with charred bits of what could have been wood or a human femur, beer cans, I'm sure I saw a few human teeth glittering in the sunlight. Over our air conditioner and fan last night I heard a few rumblings from that direction. I had the feeling if I'd gone over there right then I'd have found them devouring the right leg of the mail man.

Further down the street are the Rocket Scientists, who didn't quite make it to the space program. Instead, these men-children build, fine-tune and test-fly ultra-mini mini bikes: motorbikes a little bigger than your average coffee maker. Everyone should have a hobby. I don't care how others amuse themselves. My only beef with the Rocket Scientists is they haven't yet perfected an ultra-mini mini bike that doesn't roar like a garbage truck when they do laps around the neighborhood. Seeing these louts on the contraption almost makes up for its wretched roar - grown men crouched on this toy-like vehicle that goes just fast enough to break a collar bone or flatten a nose if someone took a corner too tightly. Then I conjure the mental image of one them riding it down to the gas station for a fill-up, cradling the ultra-mini mini bike in an arm like a little terrier, as he gently applies the gas pump handle to its wee fuel orifice. The ultra-mini mini bike is probably bathed in the kitchen sink, evenings, and probably has its own blanket-lined box in the garage. When it comes to repairing or calibrating this pet vehicle, I imagine the Rocket Scientists affixing a jewelers' monocle in an eye and working on the thing with watchmakers' tools.

Everyone should have a hobby.

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