Unless of course, you're referring to speed limits.  But I already mentioned that.

The Fourth of July poses a conundrum for me, or at least it did tonight.  As a Certified Guy, I am  a closet pyro.  The part of little boys fascinated with all things fire-related never seems to die - or mature - in guys.  You wonder why we're such the grill-meisters?  We get to play with fire.  Gas, lighter fluid, flint & tinder - makes no difference.  Where there's smoke, there's fire.  And where there's fire, there's probably a guy or two standing around nonchalantly thinking silently to themselves "Man that's cool!"

Spending the first eight years of my life in Indiana, I have memories of uncles gathered in the back yard to light sparklers or create writhing, black, acrid snakes with a black pellet and the end of a match.  If we had fireworks proper, I don't remember.  And I certainly wouldn't have been allowed to set them off.  Even the sparklers made my parents a bit nervous.  In hindsight, I can't blame them.  I'm not sure I'd be too eager to hand my seven-year old the pyrotechnic equivalent of a stick dipped in gasoline and covered with flammable pop-rocks before being lit on fire.  

Fireworks were illegal and unobtainable in Phoenix, so the rest of my childhood offered no options for breaking the law with fireworks.  In St. Louis, fireworks were legal, but not in our particular part of the city.  However, I bought a ton of them and set them off like a giddy school-boy two years running - without the least bit of guilt.  Mostly because the rest of our block was doing pretty much the same thing.

So it was not without a sense of irony that I grumbled tonight about the neighbors setting off a half-dozen or so loud fireworks next door to us.  Inconsistency gives me hemorrhoids if I notice it.  And so I checked my indignation at the brazen lack of respect for the law our next-door neighbors displayed tonight.  If they wake my kids (they didn't), they'll go back to sleep.  The odds of burning my house down are pretty slim.  Chill out, dude.  Am I really getting that old?  

For a couple of moments tonight, it seemed that I was.  

Our nation has lasted for 230-some years based on some fundamental precepts about the nature of the universe, and a few unwritten rules about being willing to cut a reasonable amount of slack to other people upon occasion.  Not that we need to - or ought to - tolerate fundamental disrespect for the law, or breaking the law in significant ways.  However, if we're too uptight about every single little rule, we're not much fun to be around - no matter how safe we may think the rules keep us.  Two nights a year I end up listening to fireworks being set off by people who ought to know better than to do so.  Depending on the location, I may be one of those people myself.  But two nights a year I can deal with a reasonable level of disturbance.  So can my kids.  And our dog.  So long as we're not in obvious or unreasonable danger.  And it's this ability to not sweat the little things that has facilitated our nation's former descriptor of 'melting pot'.  

Happy Birthday, America.  And thanks to my neighbors for keeping the pyrotechnics to a minimum and ending them at a decent hour.