A Pennsylvania Fourth.

On Saturday, I celebrated the Fourth of July by joining a couple of other Jesuits for fireworks in suburban Narberth, a short drive from the SJU campus. Given that I live in Philadelphia, some readers may wonder why I didn't join in the massive holiday festivities downtown - after all, you might say, how could I pass up the opportunity to celebrate Independence Day in the city where it all started? The answer is very simple. As I wrote in a Fourth of July post two years ago, I've always regarded Independence Day as a small-town affair. The prospect of celebrating the Fourth in the midst of a major metropolis holds no appeal for me; my template for Fourth of July celebrations remains the beachfront fireworks display of my Massachusetts childhood. Narberth is far from any beach, but it does provide the sort of small-town atmosphere that I associate with Independence Day.

Some of my experience of Narberth's Independence Day celebration is captured in the above images, which represent my first attempt to photograph fireworks with a digital camera. I'm generally very pleased with the results, though I'm hard-pressed to explain the odd band of light in the lower left-hand corner of the fourth photo. On the whole, I had a very fine Independence Day in Narberth and would be happy to celebrate the Fourth there in the future. I hope that all readers who celebrated U.S. Independence Day this past weekend enjoyed themselves as much as I did. AMDG.