When I was just 12 years old, I attended a neighborhood pool party with a few families from our street. There were kids of all ages, with the youngest being around the age of 2. As the adults gathered in the shallow end of the pool, one mother was with her young toddler. She placed the young girl on a pool noodle as a floatation device.

The Fourth of July and fireworks—it’s hard to think about one without the other. And it’s no wonder. The tradition is as old as the country itself. On the eve of the first Independence Day, founding father John Adams predicted future generations would celebrate with “Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other.”