I didn't have to go to Friday night's fireworks at Mount Rushmore to understand the disappointment felt by legions of long-suffering fans at the Shrine of Democracy.

I read the Rapid Replies …

And saw the video …

And heard the second-hand accounts of the night by the photographer, videographer and the reporter that were there to cover the event for the Journal.

But if you listened to and read the complaints, you would think that not only had the annual fireworks display come up grossly short of expectations but that each individual attendee had their vehicle ticketed, been charged exorbitant fees simply to attend the (free) event and had their birthdays permanently revoked.

Having not spent 8 hours plus in the persistent, cool drizzle and fog that enveloped the Memorial throughout the day and evening, it is hard to fully emphathize with these frustrations, or why one might cheer on the folks who gave them a brief preview of colored clouds.

But the anger is there. I won't go into the Rapid Replies, which challenged everyone from the grunts who were launching the fireworks to President Obama, who wasn't there but whose voice was used as part of the show.

Instead, I'll go to Twitter, where at least the comments are limited by 140 characters or so. Here's a brief sampling from the Twitosphere.

LSwiceman: Flew to South Dakota to see fireworks at Mt Rushmore but the mountain is totally fogged over.Idots still shot them off but no one saw them.

sukirubry: Happy 4th. Hope everyone was able to see the fireworks at Mt Rushmore. What an awesome display. Red, blue and green fog

LeftwingCowboy: Walked 4 miles to rushmore to listen to fireworks in the haze.Walked 4 miles back in the dark & drizzle listening to16yr daughter whine.

Still, I can think of plenty of greater disappointments in life. Not winning an Oscar before the age of 30.

Not getting chosen to be a part of MTV's Real World. Failing to top my son's high score in MarioKart Wii. But those are all personal. There are certainly some that most everyone can identify with, a sort of universal disappointment generally felt only after watching an Adam Sandler movie or hearing the Powerball was won in your town and finding out that you were NOT the winner.

The Great Disappointment

You know something was disappointing when the event earns the title "The Great Disappointment."

But if you were waiting for the Second Coming and were relatively assured that it was coming on a specific date, and then the date passed, and you were still waiting, and you waited, and waited, and waited, and waited some more, and then at the end of all your waiting you either A) died, or B) got drafted into the Civil War, well, that would be disappointing.

The date was Oct. 22, 1844, and thousands of Americans waited for the certain end of the world and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This they were promised by William Miller, a Baptist preacher whose powers of persuasion must have been massive, as church attendance began growing by leaps and bounds.

And while the new mass of Millerites were no doubt disappointed - and abused by the non-understanding non-Millerites after the date passed - they did help spur a few new religions, including the Seventh Day Adventists, which are still around today.

Las Vegas Fireworks 2009

For those who were despondent in their lack of THIRD OF JULY fireworks action after their march up to Mount Rushmore, know this for certain: You are not alone in your despondency.

First of all, cities throughout the United States had to cut back on their pyrotechnics this year because of the severity of the recession and an increase in the cost of fireworks imported from eastern Asia.

That means there were plenty of folks from Maine to Southern California that were less than enthralled with their communities' attempts at appeasing the celebrating masses. Of course, we should have seen it coming after the less than spectacular display put on by Las Vegas during their generally fabulous New Year's Eve fireworks display.

There was plenty written on it and other displays, but as the saying goes: "A picture is worth a thousand words." There's about 40 words here, but they are darn funny. Make sure to scroll over the tiny boxes describing the fireworks - or lack thereof - on the photo. CLICK HERE to see the photo.

1990 Super Bowl

One of my favorite stories ever to hit the front page of the Rapid City Journal came in January of 1990 the day after the 1990 Superbowl between the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos.

Few believed that the Broncos would win the game but many in the Hills area were holding out for at least a decent showing. And those strains of hope held up for a bit, but then came the coin toss and the beginning of the game, and those hopes were quickly dashed by Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and company.

As I recall, the Journal story led with reports of large amounts of Broncos memorabilia being found strewn across different parts of Interstate 90. Fans, obviously, were not taking the 40-point-plus loss well.

Being a lifelong Vikings fan, it is a disappointment I am very in touch with. Of course, Broncos fans got their reprieve with the coming of Terrell Davis just a few years later, which should be a lesson for us all. There is always next season, whether it is a football or a fireworks display.

http://www.ironic.com/y2k/">Y2K

The Y2K phenomenon has to be one of the biggest let downs of the past 100 years. Not that we should mind. If the prognasticators had proved to be right, we would have reverted in the matter of hours to the stone age, completely eviscerated by our growing dependence on technology.

But the lead up - largely spurred by a fawning media and a much less tech-savvy public than that of today - was unaparlleled in the modern history. A giant meteor screaming toward Earth would have elicited no more panic than some of the true Y2K followers. Taken up as a religion by people who were voted by their high school classmates as "Most Likely to Secede," it spurred a second survivalist movement even among some folks here in the Hills.

In the end, it turned out much ado about nothing. No sudden computer failures. No massive blackouts. No sudden return to the dark ages, unless you count the continuing de-evolution of prime time television in America.

It seems so long ago, part of that pre-9/11 world where or biggest fears were those dreamed up by nervous computer analysts with an active imagination and an Internet connection.

That's not to say some of it didn't come true. The folks at Ironic.com broke it down nicely: the pre-Y2K worries and the post-Y2K realities. Check it out here.

The Great Gatsby on film

F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby" is perhaps the greatest American Novel ever. Sure, Melville's "Moby Dick" was epic and Hemmingway's "The Old Man And The Sea" spoke volumes in its sparsity, but "Gatsby" is akin to poetry in prose, a portrait of the American Dream and all of its pitfalls.

The movie is like a poorly lit Polaroid of a television screen upon which the film is being broadcast on - in standard definition, nonetheless.

It's hard to imagine they could miss so badly. The film featured screen greats Robert Redford, Mia Farrow and Bruce Dern. And they all stunk. The script was far more wooden than the book - as they always are - but it also tried to carry through some of the most allegorical of scenes. In the novel, when Jay Gatsby reaches out with a severe longing for the green light on the end of the dock of Daisy's massive estate, you feel the yearning deep in your gut. When Robert Redford reaches out for the green light in a literal sense, you get a whole different kind of feeling in your gut, and it isn't good. And that's after you get done laughing.

Of course, the book is almost always going to be better than the movie (with the rare exception of Steven King short stories), so it may be unfair to pick on the Gatsby movie. Perhaps it only illustrates the greatest distance between the two in the short American history.