Velociworld

BONFIRES

That mention of bonfires got me to thinking about the couple the Senator held. Fresh to the farm, he had to clear a lot of land to force that soil unto agriculture. Now, it saddens a boy's heart to see wondrous forest levelled to mundane fields of corn and soybean, but the payback was the bonfire.

I recall two, one especially nice. This wood row (I think that's what they called the pile before it was alighted) was old pine, and oak, the pine heavy with sap, and lighter knot (what some people, whom I shall deem gays, call fat lighter). Sassafrass root, too. A huge pile, redolent of turpentine and oak musk.

Our pile was much bigger than the one at Texas A&M, but flatter, still three stories tall, but not being engineers we didn't kill anyone with ours. It didn't collapse.

And so one let that half-acre pile of wood, gnarled stump, trunk, branch, rootball, sit for a month or so, and dry out. In the meantime my brother and I would climb it, scale it, kill fucking Nazis and Nips in its crevasses, and hidey holes. Creosote is a naturally occurring phenomenon, I believe, because we ruint a lot of jeans.

I'm very safety conscious with my children. To the anal-retentive point that I will chastise them for leaving their drink glasses too close to the edge of the dinner table. Suffice it to say the adults in this crowd thought Safety consisted of saying "If you catch on fire, boy, you better drop and roll. Iffen you run you're going to flame up like a marshmeller."

So we kept the respectful distance, the sole metric being when one's eyebrows melted. You would then take a step back.

Half the county showed up for these things, of course, and because it was a dry county you can be sure there was plenty of whiskey, both bonded and home brewed, in evidence. The volunteer firemen were there, however they couldn't bring their fire trucks because they wanted to drink. If this had been Southern California the entire state would have ignited.

Oh, the joy of an unearthly sky high roaring flame. Armageddon to a child, especially a little fire sign Aries. Weiners on cane poles, plastic go-go boots melted on the girls.

I want to see a fire like that again. I understand there is some urban development scheduled for downtown. Maybe I can work something out.