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This is the third year that I am running the same blog entry on July 4th. It isn't that I think it is going to be a holiday classic like the late Art Buchwald's Thanksgiving column. It is basically because I am lazy.

This year I am giving a little extra effort to show I am not just phoning it in. We have some new material to go with the posting.

Above is the video I shot of the Big Foot Pizza blimp crash that occurred on July 4, 1993 at 410 West 53rd Street in Manhattan. You can read more about the incident here. Some of you will recognize a few of the people in the video. I don't want to ruin the surprise by telling you who they are.

Also, last year I was able to interview the man who directed the movie mentioned in the column, Avalon. Some of my talk with Barry Levinson is incorporated in a cable show, Out of the Past, hosted by my friends Lee Shephard and Chuck Langdon. Click here to watch it (my small role is toward the end).

Levinson started his career at the TV station in Washington where I work and credits another friend, Jim Silman, as a great influence on his career in motion pictures. Jim's son, "Ratso", made famous in a few Kinky Friedman novels, has been a news photographer at Channel 9 for many years (and is in Kinky's band).

I loved Avalon because it was about Baltimore, it reminded me of my own family and it has a great fire scene in it.

Enough name dropping, but I thought I would give you a little broadcasting history and show that I chase after more than fire chiefs with my camera.

One final update that is more relevant to what we usually do here. Two years later, DC Fire & EMS Department Chief Dennis Rubin is still fighting the fight to get consumer fireworks banned in the Nation's Capital. He continues to run into a great deal of political opposition.

Now to the Best of Dave (or is it the worst?) from July 4, 2007. Have a safe and wonderful holiday:

Fireworks: A Journey From New York to Baltimore to Washington or Dave's July 4th Adventure.

Independence Day in 1993 was one of the stranger days of my life. I had gone with my friend Vito Maggiolo to New York to experience July 4th, usually the busiest day of the year for FDNY.

In the afternoon we were visiting one of Vito's friends at Manhattan Fire Alarm in Central Park.

As we were sitting around chatting, the phones suddenly began ringing. We were hearing bits and pieces of only one side of the conversation. But the call takers were asking questions with surprised looks on their faces. We heard: "A what?"; "Where"?; "It's deflating?"; "Over the Hudson?".

Vito and I raced south and then to the west toward the Hudson River. We arrived just after the first firefighters and saw Pizza Hut's Bigfoot Pizza Blimp draped over the side of an apartment building. We watched as the two injured crew members were brought down from the roof.

To me, that wasn't the strangest part of the day. I would save that description for the nightime tour of Brooklyn with FDNY's deputy commissioner for public information. To this day I have never seen anything else quite like it.

It seemed as if fireworks were going off on every street. Barrels of fireworks burned in the middle of many blocks. Bottle rockets struck our car. M-80s exploded in trash can after trash can. The radio blared with reports of neighbor's homes set on fire by fireworks along with numerous reports of injured people.

On one hand it felt as if I had been transported to a war zone. I'll admit, being new to this, it was a little scary. At the same time, it reminded me of something very beautiful --- one of my favorite movies, Barry Levinson's "Avalon".

The scene of Russian immigrant Sam Krichinsky arriving in Baltimore on July 4th is repeated throughout the film. As he walks under exploding fireworks all around him, this is the voice-over dialogue:

I came to America in 1914--by way of Philadelphia. That's where I got off the boat. And then I came to Baltimore. It was the most beautiful place you ever seen in your life. There were lights everywhere! What lights they had! It was a celebration of lights! I thought they were for me, Sam, who was in America. Sam was in America! I know what holiday it was, but there were lights. And I walked under them. The sky exploded, people cheered, there were fireworks! What welcome it was, what a welcome!

This is the long way around to talk about the story I covered yesterday. But I think it is appropriate, because it illustrates the dilemma with fireworks. For many of us they are beautiful and meaningful. At the same time there are serious dangers.

A task force led by D.C. Fire & EMS has been rounding up illegal fireworks in recent days. At a press conference to announce the seizure of a large quantity of fireworks, I asked Chief Dennis Rubin his thoughts on the fireworks that are currently legal in the District. The ones residents are allowed to buy at the almost seventy roadside stands set up in DC.

As a reporter, I instantly realized Chief Rubin's answer was the news of the day. To me it overshadowed the talk of arrests and confiscation. Chief Rubin thinks the time may have come to ban all fireworks in the Nation's Capital, except those used in licensed public displays.

The fire chief lit the fuse and the reaction was somewhat explosive. James Peters, a retired D.C. fire inspector who runs 4 stands, would not believe me when I told him what I had learned at the press conference. Later when he realized I wasn't making it up, Peters expressed anger. But his reaction was mild compared to a few other stand operators I heard from by telephone after the story aired.

Dennis Rubin says it is all about keeping children and everyone else safe. The fireworks stand owners say show me the statistics that indicate "safe and sane fireworks" are a problem in DC.

The last time the City Council dealt with this issue was in 2004. The bill to outlaw personal fireworks died in committee. But it should be noted that the co-sponsor of that bill is now Dennis Rubin's boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty.

Historical note: The police chief (not the fire chief) in Washington, DC banned all Independence Day fireworks in 1881. That was a one-time only deal due to President James A. Garfield being shot two days only.

# posted by Dave Statter @ 8:59 AM