Letters

When did it turn into the Fourth?

I have seen a great many changes over my lifetime; the ways people ring in the new year is one of them.

In the 1950s, the loudest it got in my neighborhood was a few people out on their front porch banging pans together and yelling, “Happy New Year.” Now, it is just like the Fourth of July, with booms, flashes and airborne sparklers everywhere.

I don’t care for the shift making New Year’s Eve “just another Fourth.” What makes people think setting off leftover fireworks is OK? The city ordinance against fireworks prohibits them whether it is July or the last moments of December.

Marietta Alexander

Everett

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