A pirate lives up the street. Not an internet pirate, but a guy who dresses up in swashbuckling clothing, picks up a sword, and gets on a boat with a cannon. The reason I know this is because the first year we lived here, the boat was parked in front of the guy's house all that year until the parade season started and it was put into action. Yup. The gentleman up the street is one of the notorious Seafair Pirates, who drive their boat in parades around Seattle all summer, and do various charity stints.
This morning as I was about to take my very late shower, I heard a lot of hearty yelling from up the street. I had a suspicion, and I opened the bathroom window and climbed up to peer out, looking up the street to the pirate's house. Sure enough, the boat was there, crowded with gaudily dressed men shouting at the people who were walking by on their way downtown for the annual parade. As I watched, they set the cannon off with a window-rattling BOOM! Then they started down the street, rolling down in their always-parade-ready boat past my house toward the celebrations. They set the cannon off again as they got to the corner... though whether it was out of sheer fun or to warn oncoming traffic I have no idea.
One year, when I was in summer band, I recall having to march in front of the Seafair Pirates in a parade. That was the second worst marching spot in the parade, only beat out by the spot right behind the mounted police (yeah, there are pooper scoopers, but they never get it all). The Pirate's cannon constantly threw us off the beat as we played, and when the Pirates got bored, they loved to harass the band members who weren't allowed to react.
Bothell has a good parade every year. Decent sized, with a lot of community support. There is also a re-enactment of the Battle of Concord at the local park, which I've always found a bit amusing considering we live on the Pacific coast.
It's also perfectly legal to set off fireworks (safe and sane fireworks) in Bothell all day today, so I'm already hearing a number of very frightened animals barking and screeching, as well as random booms and snaps just about everywhere.
When I was a kid, a teenager I think, I was out at a friend's house for the Fourth of July. We were letting off fireworks on the dock, some of them not of the safe and sane variety (there's a tradition of visiting the local Reservations to buy fireworks from the Native Americans who aren't constrained by state laws against the more wild sort). All the people watching were in lawn chairs, though I kept standing up and wandering to the edge of the dock to get a better look at the other fireworks along the Canal. Out of the gloom between the sound of the bombs bursting in air, I heard a small and frightened "meow!" from the woodpile. I went over to investigate and found a terrified kitten who had wandered from the neighbor's house for whatever reason, and was now trying vainly to get away from the noise. After a quick consultation with the neighbors, who were at our party, I picked up the kitten and walked behind the woodpile with it, cuddling it in my arms and talking softly to it to see if I could calm it down a little. At that moment, my friend had let off a big boomer firework that was supposed to climb into the air before it went off. It climbed into the air... about 5 feet... and burst hugely scattering all the folks at the party. It was a miracle nobody was seriously hurt. My friend had been bending over to pick up another firework, her brother had knelt to talk with a family member, and I was behind the woodpile, which we had to hastily douse. Virtually all the sparks went over the crowd of lawnchairs, and only somebody who was standing would have taken the full brunt of the blast. If not for the kitten, that would have been me. As I've said, I had my fill of fireworks as a kid.
Update: The pirates returned to the neighborhood just before 2 pm. They blew their air horn, and had a siren going. I watched them from the front window as they passed our house. One of the pirates raised his sword and caught some of the evergreen branches from the trees in front of our house, and sliced them to the ground as the boat (the Moby Duck) raced past. They are now up the street shouting and blowing horns as they disperse to their cars to go home and be normal folk again.
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