Dear Editor:

Trust me when I say, I’m as patriotic as the next guy, and after reading your July 5 editorial on being safe and respectful with fireworks, I thought maybe things might be different during this year’s Fourth of July celebrations? I have to say they were not!

You see, the fireworks start out where I live at least three days and nights before the Fourth and continue each day and night for three to four days and nights after the Fourth! That ends up being a full week of fireworks celebrating, with at least where I live with no regards for any neighbors, family pets, farm animals or wildlife! It has gotten so bad, that there were years when we have had to sedate our dogs, and when that became frustrating, we had to kennel our dogs far from where we live with the hopes they would be better off from those that come out here where we live, because it’s against the law to shoot off these high dollar aerial bombs and rockets in town.

Where is it written that I have to suffer the buying of medications to administer them to my dogs or that I must pay fees to kennel my dogs, while the people who come out here to bombard our neighborhood leave their pets at their homes in town?

How did all this get so out of hand with celebrating the Fourth, the holiday of our independence, for a full week? Why should we out here in the county have to suffer the shooting of fireworks not only during the day but until midnight or even after that for a full week? Just last night, on Sunday, July 7, it was after midnight before all ended!

Today we picked up several 8-inch rockets, complete with plastic wings to guide the rocket along with the green nose cone, laying in our backyard! Couldn’t these things ignite my stacks of firewood? What happens if they didn’t fly right and broke in a window and set the house on fire, who pays for that?

And for these people setting this stuff off out here, I wonder if they have ever seen the look on a dog’s face, especially his eyes, when he has no clue what all is going on and he feels unsafe and scared, and tries to crawl into dark corners to get away from it all? The answer to that is, NO, they don’t care, that’s why they are out here in the county setting this stuff off!

Maybe it’s time for the county commissioners to, after all these years, enact some rules for the shooting off of fireworks in the county? Maybe help to cut it down to the day before the Fourth, the Fourth, and that’s it? Maybe a county time limit, too, say, from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.! I would think three full hours of bombardment would be enough?

I doubt anything will happen, because to me it seems nobody truly cares or wants to do anything about it! I can tell you that July 4 has become for me and my pets a truly hated holiday each year that I do not look forward to ... As a veteran who served our country, I do understand the celebration but, I ask, hasn’t it just gotten a little overboard or out of hand? Just saying!

Richard Brady

Powell