A Cruise Holiday Celebration that Blew Up! - Time Out #484

My bride, Lady Deborah, our youngest, Robbie, and I have had some incredible international travel  experiences in our 43-plus years of marital bliss. We have witnessed some eye-opening happenings in the 102 countries we have visited, all across Planet Earth. This week's column will discuss a colossal event the three of us were caught-up in during a boisterous New Year's Day celebration. Our memory event took place on the Dutch-influenced, Southern Caribbean Island of Aruba, many years ago. However, in my memory bank, it seemed like it happened yesterday!  

     Our trio were passengers an ocean cruise ship, anchored in Aruba's capital city, Oranjestad (population 28,658). It was New Year's morning, and we decided we would go ashore, walk around their colorful downtown area, and, simply, check out this resort city. Instead, we received far more excitement than we had ever imagined!   

     Soon after we walked on the island, we noticed we were hearing more and more firecrackers explode. Most fireworks sounds we heard were relatively far away, but, occasionally, the sounds were much closer.  Being fireworks fans ourselves, we weren't too concerned with the closeness of a few of the explosions. We simply had to pay more attention to our immediate surroundings. 

     The further we walked toward their city center, the louder and more frequent the fireworks explosions were occurring. The crowd of local people was increasing, too, as were the smells of smoke, including the gunpowder that was causing all the "booms'!. Before too long, we found ourselves on a main street with local spectators seemingly everywhere we looked. We were totally surprised when we noticed a huge string of firecrackers that were placed down the middle of the public street, extending beyond our sight in both directions. The other major factor we vividly remembered, there was absolutely NO SECURITY anywhere in sight for safety purposes! We told each other we would NEVER witness this strange scene in Our Country, due to many reasons, the main factor being public safety.   

     So, as the 3 of us were standing near the fireworks, we easily heard the progressive explosions of the straight line of firecrackers, slowly working its loud way in our direction down the middle of the street. As the moving explosions were heading our direction, so was smoke and chaotic celebrating island people. We merely moved back away from the large straight line of firecrackers, thinking we would have several minutes before the exploding line would reach the area we were standing.  

     Unfortunately, for our psyche, we were wrong, and experienced an incredible surprise! Unaware of someone near us, lit a large pile of fireworks that was far in front of the forward-advancing exploding line. Once ignited, this 2nd large separate fireworks mound blew up, and sounded like a large bomb exploding!  The large isolated explosion produced intense smoke and thousands of paper fragments that composed the fireworks. Lady Deborah quickly secured Robbie's hand during the chaos. Once we scampered clear of the immediate danger area, we paused to reflect on just what actually did happen, along with the absolute fear factor of what COULD (?) have happened? 

     Years later, remembering that unbelievable event that day long ago in Aruba, sends chills up and down my spine.

     Wow! What a scary narrow escape. And, what memories!