Independence Day: My friends, old guard Echo Park, have put together a gorgeous party -- lots of neighbors.

At the barbecue, it seems everyone is talking about how quiet things are this July 4, and it's true. People are talking about "disruptions in the flow" of fireworks from China. An artist friend of mine says factories there have been damaged in fires. (Fire at fireworks factories?! Doesn't sound good.) No one says a different obvious: it's been getting quieter and quieter on July 4 in Echo Park for the last few years. The noisy people, with their eruptions, are getting pushed out, replaced by the nosy ones.

The sun sets spectacularly -- partly due to smoke coming from Santa Barbara. The sun is red-red, dipping fast below the ridge over Griffith Park. Before it gets dark out, the flower-bloom-type of fireworks have started all around in the neighborhood, particularly to the south. It's a downward view of them we're enjoying, but they are lovely and not too loud from the ridge. My three-year-old daughter is enjoying them. I am, too. Some of what we're watching comes from Echo Park Lake. I am aware of what an untranquil scene it will be down at the lake, and can't bear to think of the four heron nests on the island, never mind the other nests. "Look, Maddie!" I say, pointing to the flower of fire in the air. (It can't be sky if it's below you, can it?)

To see what it was like at Echo Park Lake this July 4, 2008, click here. Footage by Kevin McCollister. In his email, McCollister says, it's "anything goes" down by the lake. Maybe the party people and the city think it's safer to set fires next to a body of water. Better than in Elysian Park, or most back yards -- if you're thinking in terms of fire. This morning, McCollister reported:

At 7:30 [a.m.] the place was pretty much trashed and you could still smell the gunpowder (cordite, smoke, whatever) in the air. Surprisingly, tho, the cleanup had begun.

It gets dark, it gets late. My daughter is out way past her bedtime. I am relieved that the Dodgers held their fireworks display at the Hollywood Bowl this year and not over Elysian Park, which is only cursorily brush-cleared by subcontractors to the city. They clear a buffer zone near the houses and other salient features of the park, leaving masses of dried tinder piling up toward the bottoms of the hills. My friend Steve has pointed out that there's enough fuel down there to light the tops of the trees, which then could send a fire racing up the hillsides, through the crowns. I am not a fire expert. But I did once talk to a fire fighter who helped run an inmates fire camp in the Angeles Forest. He said that most people look up at the hillsides and see beauty and nature, "I look at it and see the whole thing on fire." Well, there's a compelling point of view.

We get home. We see other neighbors who are walking back from Elysian Park where they had expected to see Dodgers Stadium fireworks but instead got a view of the skyline and the city lights and smaller bursts of friendly fire. Getting out of the car, we hear the muted but boisterous sounds of some neighbors having drinks together. Standing in the street is a group of young men. They are looking downhill in the direction of Echo Park Avenue, where fireworks are shooting straight up from the street -- one after another in regular intervals. Straight up the hill on the other side the same thing is happening, a coordinated effort that I'd like to watch, partly to see if it works and partly just for pleasure.

But it's almost ten and my daughter has not just hit the wall -- she has gone through it to the other side somewhere. My husband and I try to put her to bed fast, and when she sees the story pile, she looks at it and says, "Only TWO stories?" I am both pleased and appalled at her indignation. We pull out three more books, per usual, but she's asleep before we finish the first one. Shortly thereafter, I'm asleep, too, amid the explosions. But soon I wake up.

I am out of bed and puttering around at 2 a.m. when I hear an argument. It's three or four voices, which means a group twice as large, maybe. They're arguing loudly, and one of them says, emphatically, "Hey, no , no. Give me the heat! Give me the heat!" There's some response and arguing, then the argument doesn't just quiet down after that, it goes silent. No joking or shifting gears. Silence. A car parks. A different neighbor gets out and walks quietly to his door. Bleep bloop, his car door locks. More silence. No firecrackers, no voices, no cars driving. Nothing, until an airplane roars by way high overhead. After a little while I hear some different neighbors with a party that seems to be winding down and moving outside. One of them served in the Marine Corps a few years ago, and ocassionally he gets loud and yells like a drill sergeant, with an angry echo in his voice. "Fuuuuck yoouuu!" he yells at someone or something. Assuming there's a difference.

And then it gets really, really quiet.