We used to love the Fourth of July up to the point that we moved to Uptown Vancouver. It hasn’t taken long for us to come to dread and hate this first week of July. We both struggle to sleep with earplugs and white noise machines to attempt to drown out the din that lasts until 2 a.m. or longer. In years past there was a feeble effort by local police to respond, but in the last four years we get platitudes and excuses.
We have to barely get by with three to four hours of sleep, and then go take care of critically ill patients, doing our best to keep from making harmful errors of judgment due to a lack of rest. We have tried to make our vacation requests coincide with this week, so as to escape the madness, not patriotic display, that is Carter Park neighborhood. We are not always so lucky since holidays such as this are rotated amongst staff and only rarely granted.
We curse the very holiday that we are supposed to treasure, and dearly miss the days when public fireworks displays were the norm and spark-lers and other less obtrusive and gentle fireworks for kids were the only exception to loud displays.
Joseph and Jennifer Ulrich
Vancouver
