I think I might be turning into my dad.
Don’t get me wrong.
My dad’s an amazing human being, and if I ever grow up I hope to be half the person he is. But my dad’s, like, 190 years old, and even he will admit that sometimes he is a literal cranky old man yelling at the kids to get off of his front lawn.
Well, he lives in a condo and doesn’t have a front lawn, but you get the idea.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking of how my dad might handle this situation.
I live in one of the most densely packed areas of Marquette, with probably 100 people living on my block, and for five straight nights one of those 100 has gone out at 11 p.m. and spent the next hour shooting off enough fireworks to make me think they have an arsenal bigger than that of the allies landing on D-Day. And I’m not just talking firecrackers; he has big percussive blasts that rattle an entire neighborhood trying to sleep.
Several of my neighbors have talked to him, but he says he’s doing nothing wrong. And in that respect, he’s right.
The law says you can legally shoot off fireworks in the state of Michigan every night around the Fourth of July until 11:45p.m. But just because it’s legal doesn’t mean you need to do it.
I mean, technically, it’s also legal for me to stand outside of his house with a trombone and play Tone Loc’s “Funky Cold Medina” over and over again. But do I? No. I have consideration for other people.
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you have to do it. I think the vast majority of us living in the UP get that. But there’s a small subset who seem to think we’re infringing upon their freedom if we ask them to consider other people’s feelings. I always thought that Yoopers looked after their neighbors; at least, that’s what my dad taught me..
So here’s my offer to my neighbor. You lay off the fireworks every night, and I’ll cancel my plans to get a trombone and learn how to play “Funky Cold Medina”.
I’m Jim Koski, apparently turning into my dad, and that’s another slice of Life in the 906.
