If you grew up or live in a neighborhood like mine — I’m from Inglewood “Up To No Good” California — you know 4th of July fireworks aren’t just a one-weekend thing.
Fireworks go off YEAR-ROUND. Some people get annoyed by it, others are so used to it that they stop noticing it.
K, lemme know if any of this sounds familiar:
Throughout the year, you’ll hear random “booms” on your block. If you’ve got a friend from a different city visiting, they’ll probably react like this:
CREDIT: NBC Los Angeles
And you have to assure them that they are fireworks, not gunshots (although you’re not always completely sure).
Other times, you’ll see random flashes briefly light up the sky.
CREDIT: Giphy
If you live with a dog, it probably looks like this after someone sets off some fireworks:
CREDIT: gifbin.com / Giphy
Things really get lit (sorry, I had to) when these fireworks booths open up.
CREDIT: raybouk / Flickr
And, of course, all the pyros in your neighborhood will stock up with a year’s worth of fireworks.
CREDIT: Bob’s Burgers / Fox
Whenever they get bored, you know those fireworks are coming out.
Then when 4th of July actually hits, here’s what goes down. Once it gets dark, it seems like every driveway on your block looks like this:
CREDIT: megangoodchild / Flickr
Your dog hates everyone in your neighborhood.
CREDIT: Giphy
If you attempt to drive anywhere while the fireworks are going off, this is what you see:
CREDIT: fogoffsecurity.co.uk
Good luck seeing anything three feet in front of you.
In your head, the whole scene probably looks something like this:
CREDIT: Batman V Superman / Warner Bros.
It’s so dark and dreary that you feel like you’re in a Zak Snyder movie.
Once it’s all over, this is what your driveway looks like — even if you didn’t set any off:
CREDIT: rynosoft / Flickr
Apparently, every driveway is fair game on the fourth.
And the next day, things go back to “normal,” which can be summed up like this:
It’s been a little over two weeks since a terrorist upended lives when he attacked an El Paso Walmart, killing 22 people. Since then, there has been an outpouring of grief and pain but along with it a community banding together amid an outpouring of support.
Over the weekend, that cycle of grief and support continued as many of the remaining victims were finally laid to rest.
One El Paso funeral home director put together the ultimate send off for all 22 victims, organizing a caravan of hearses that convened at the makeshift memorial.
Twenty-two hearses carried flowers to the makeshift memorial outside Walmart.
Perches, who organized the funeral for an El Paso widower who made headlines when he invited the entire city to his wife’s service, reached out to other area funeral homes to organize 22 hearses — one for each person killed — to deliver flowers to the makeshift memorial at Walmart, which has become a place to mourn and remember. One final procession.
On Sunday, the hearses left La Paz and followed a police escort for the five mile procession to the memorial.
There were so many flowers at La Paz that it took nearly an hour for about 100 volunteers to load the hearses.
The flowers were donated from the El Paso widower made famous when he invited the entire city to his wife’s funeral.
There were 22 hearses, representing the 22 victims of the shooting, that carried more than 1,000 floral arrangements sent by people around the world for Margie Reckard’s funeral service and burial — which were held on Friday night and Saturday.
Salvador Perches told local ABC affiliate KVIA, “I spoke with (Reckard’s) husband about the idea, and he felt this would be a fitting tribute to his wife and to the other victims,” Perches said. “Contact was then made to all of the other participating funeral homes and all of them agreed that this can serve as a gesture of unity and a sense of closure for all of the funerals that happened from this tragedy.”
People who saw the caravan pass by took to social media to share their emotions.
EMOTIONAL TRIBUTE: Thousands of flower displays, sent for the funeral of an El Paso shooting victim, were carried in a procession of 22 hearses, to a growing memorial inside the Walmart parking lot, with one hearse for each victim killed in the shooting. https://t.co/la3p8pH7ufpic.twitter.com/CHvnn4BOMs
Cars stopped in both directions as the 22 hearses passed. People captured the moment on cell phones. Some held small American flags and removed their hats.
“I just got chills,” Sunset Funeral Homes Director Christopher Lujan told CNN in an interview. “Seeing 22 hearses is just unbelievable.”
The hearses unloaded the flowers at the makeshift memorial site outside the Walmart where the attack took place.
The makeshift memorial at Walmart sprang up a day after the shooting. People have gathered to pray and sing amid the candles, rosaries and white crosses with handwritten names of the dead.
Funeral directors invited mourners at the memorial site to unload the arrangements. They took the flowers and arranged them around the crosses. “Everybody wanted to participate in one way or another,” said Gomez, who runs the social services non-profit Operation H.O.P.E., in an interview with CNN.
It’s been two weeks to the day since a white supremacist traveled 10 hours to target Latino shoppers at an El Paso Walmart, leaving 22 dead and injured another 25 people. One patient remains in critical condition while another four are stable, but still hospitalized at El Paso’s University Medical Center. A surprise visit from Stand and Deliver star Edward James Olmos and comedian George Lopez certainly caused a positive flurry of emotion in hospital staff and survivors.
El Paso Times reports that there was no live media coverage of their visit, as it was not publicized and took everyone by surprise. The two spent hours just talking to survivors, families of those who did not survive and hospital staff.
“It was a real emotional experience all around,” UMC spokesman Ryan Mielke told El Paso Times. “They just wanted to meet with patients and staff.”
Olmos posted a photo to his Twitter with one of the survivors and her family.
@edwardjolmos / Twitter
“Celebrating life with the survivors of El Paso,” tweeted Mexicano actor Edward J Olmos. “Find a way of helping and uniting with the families of those that lost family members and survivors and their families of Dayton and El Paso. Find ways of helping!”
Olmos and Lopez were gifted surgical caps signed by all the hospital staff that treated victims that fateful August 3rd.
@umcelpaso / Twitter
“The surgery caps worn by Lopez and Olmos were signed by all the members of UMC’s Emergency Department who were on hand August 3rd after a mass causality shooting in El Paso,” tweeted UMC El Paso. “Their visit today brought smiles and relief to recovering victims and their families.”
Mielke said the Hollywood stars pulled up a chair next to the survivors and listened to them for hours.
@FraireLibrado / Twitter
UMC hospital nurse Priscilla Fraire smiled big to get a selfie in with Lopez and Olmos. Her mom even tweeted out her thanks to the actors, saying, “Thanks George and Edward for caring about our community. #ElPasoStrong #ThankYou”
“Thank you for all you do for our Raza,” tweets a fan named Debbie Lopez Contreras. “I truly appreciate you and all your hard work to make this world a better place. Much to you and yours”
The El Paso Pride is certainly stronger than ever.
@leon47150662 / Twitter
“Put a firmeza en El Chuco Tejas love my town 915 por vida,” one fan responds to Olmos’ tweet. “Let’s hear it for the good guys,” tweets Liz Perez in response to a comment that wonders why “hospitalized victims of the racist GOP terrorist mass murderer welcomed their visits and adamantly refused to see trump and the missus.”
“Thank you for going to my beloved hometown, Mr. Olmos!” tweets another El Pasoan. “A beautiful, compassionate and wonderful city with people on both sides of the border with our Sister City Ciudad Juarez! You are amazing, as always <3” El Paso is strong because of its Latinos, holding up other Latinos, por siempre.
This hospital staffer expressed gratitude for Olmos’ empathy for El Paso.
@CynthiaTitimtz / Twitter
“Greatly appreciate you for taking the time to come visit my city #ElPaso,” tweeted Cynthia Martinez. “It was a real pleasure to meet you. Thank you for making time to come and support our city. A community that is grieving, that is hurting.”
“There were lines of nurses and it was chaotic.”
@MikaHayashi9 / Twitter
“They were really friendly,” 23-year-old nursing student Oseleonoleme told El Paso Times. “There were lines of nurses and it was chaotic.”
That chaos led to some staffers missing out on the photo op, and others delighting their daughters who later tweeted the above photo with the caption, “My dad works at UMC El Paso and he sent me this picture today!”
Forever, we honor the victims from the El Paso shooting.
