There's nothing more mesmerizing than sitting by a fire on a cool evening and watching the flames. I have always been a fan of fires. I remember being about 7 or 8 and wanting to start a campfire in the secret spot my cousin and I had behind our Great Grandmother's arborvitae shrubs. We asked the adults for some matches. Obviously, we didn't get any. We did, however, receive a magnifying glass and with it the promise that if we managed to start a fire with it, we could have a campfire. Silly grown ups. I think it took us about 10 minutes to get it going good enough to move it under the shrubs. And thus, a young pyromaniac was born. Luckily, with my dad serving as a fire fighter for Baltimore County, I also had a solid respect for fire and what it could do. I listened to my dad's stories about houses that burned down, and I decided I needed to pack my most prized possessions up so I could grab them and get them out of the house in the event of a fire. So I used brown paper bags (paper being such an excellent fire retarder and all). It took 5 bags to hold all my stuff. When it became a pain to repack the bags each time I wanted to play with something, I gave up on the idea.
Deltaville has always been an excellent place for a campfire or bonfire. Once Pepop opted to use gasoline to get a large brush pile going. I think there was some singeing of eyebrows, and I was certain Smokey the Bear was going to show up and tell him he should know better and only he could prevent forest fires (I was secretly hoping Smokey would show up because I was in love with Smokey the Bear, and Chewbacca... it's a hairy guy thing, you wouldn't understand).
Nowadays, we have smaller burn piles that are comfortable enough to sit around sipping wine or listening to music or listening to the sounds of nature. And I can spend hours staring into a fire and watching it lick the wood.
And usually attended by a professional:
Sometimes, we even go to a friend's house spur of the moment to drink wine by their fire pit and eat farshmellows and chockit.
Makes for a goom time.
Those spur of the moment wine, farshmellow and chockit bonfires are the best!
ReplyDeleteI totally get the Smokey the Bear one, but will have to reflect on Chewbacca a bit.
My crushes involved Glenn Campbell and George Brett. I suppose a "rhinestone cowboy" is about as far from a big, hairy guy as it gets, but at the time I didn't care.
If this rain ever stops, there's a bonfire in my future this weekend. Come on down!
I love watching a contained fire burn .. as a kid I once decided to use my bedroom trash can as a chimera (I didnt know the word chimera back then but for the sake of this comment .. ) .. my tush got even redder than the fire after my father smelled the smoke ..
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