Monday Musings from Melinda by Melinda M.December 14. That’s when we heard it. Our first one of the season. That familiar high pitched whistle that ends in a pop. My daughter looked up from her homework and asked, “Already?”Yup. Around every holiday when it’s permitted (New Year’s, Chinese New Year’s, July 4th) the sound of the first firecracker is heard about two weeks prior and maybe three days past. In Hawaii, you can buy all kinds of fireworks at Longs Drugs and KTA supermarket and at “pop-up” stores around town. You need to buy a permit to buy certain kinds and over a certain amount but there is no amount of money or permit to get the illegals. And yet, those are everywhere. Big sky-arching pyrotechnics that rival the official ones put on by the Jaycees or the County, dotting the skies all over Hilo or any place in Hawaii, really.Fireworks are integral to a Hawaii childhood – something that took me a little while to adjust to, of watching little kids run back and forth, lighting fuses. But it’s all my kids know and so now, when I tell them we will be in the Bay Area for New Year’s and my daughter asks if we’ll be doing fireworks at Aunty’s house and I tell her, no those aren’t allowed in most places, you know what she says? “Lame!”Happy New Year everyone!