It’s Guy Fawkes Night in the UK, though it would appear that health and safety divisions are keeping a watery eye on most festivities. As I observed too briefly four years ago, Bonfire Night is becoming obsolete. Even the city of York, birthplace of the wanna-be revolutionary/terrorist, is forgoing the festivities entirely. It’s too expensive, they say. Dangerous, as well. For humans as well as four-legged folk.

This year, think of the hedgepigs.

Ever since I heard of Guy Fawkes night, I wanted to be in the UK on November 5. Nothing could be better, I thought. It would be like our own Fourth of July, only with a British accent and massive bonfires. But a couple of years ago, Nikki and I got to witness the fifth of November in person.

We were in Canterbury, the middle stop in our whirlwind tour of various cathedrals and the cities that hosted them. Now, I don’t recall seeing a single firework in the sky. Nor do I remember any bonfires of note. What I do remember is the noise. Throughout the night, we got to hear the intermittent popping of several firecrackers. When you’re on vacation, one that features a lot of walking and exploring, the last thing you want in the dead of night is extemporaneous explosions, no matter how small.

But here’s the rub. We were mostly okay with the noise on the Fifth. It’s the holiday, we figured. People gotta celebrate. Let it pass. But apparently, some folks don’t have up-to-date calendars on the English countryside.

A couple of days before the Fifth, we were in Cambridge. We stayed in a reasonably priced bed and breakfast just outside of “downtown.” The owning family still lived in quarters just off the lobby area, so while I was checking my email and securing our itinerary at the shared iMac, I got to hear an argument through the walls. The daughter was yelling about how her money was her money ’cause she’d earned it and weren’t nobody gonna tell her how she was gonna spend her money and so on. But that tirade was only a preamble for the actual fireworks to come. It must’ve been around midnight or so when folks started celebrating Guy Fawkes Day Eve Eve.

Three days after the Fifth, we were in Salisbury, there to visit a cathedral so huge and magnificent it defies comprehension. Our bed and breakfast was just about perfect, right down to the electric kettle provided for tea. But once night fell and we decided to sleep, the fireworks ensued, more fireworks than the many we heard on the actual fifth or even the second. And they carried on and on, long enough that I’m pretty sure that any admiration any of us had for the holiday was blown clear away.

So we remember, remember that fifth of November. And the second. And the eighth. But all the same, I’ve still an admiration for what the holiday represents, as outmoded and as controversial as it may yet become. It still serves as a reminder of the impact on history that can be made by one person in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time.

(The kind of impact not usually made by people who can’t read calendars.)