Fireballs at Night

Looking back on the things my brother’s and I did growing up, it is entirely understandable that the wise money in town was running 8 to 1 against us living long enough to vote.

I’d like to tell you it was because those people were narrow minded.  I’d like to tell you it was because they were just not gifted enough to understand the intellectual level we operated on.  I’d like to tell you their money was misplaced. I’d like to, but I can’t.

And I can’t tell you if our antics were due to the times in which we grew, the people we grew up around, or just plain genetics.  And while more than one person who spent time listening to my father or his brother came to the conclusion it just might have been genetics, truth be told, I have to at least admit that the three of us raised the bar a prodigious amount.  

The difference a single generation made was rather like the difference in bar height for a high jumper in the 1950’s being compared to a pole vaulter at the 2016 Olympics.  But that is perspective that time brings, at the time I always figured that if I could pin it on genetics I’d be better off.  

Cause then Dad would have to acknowledge his own contribution to whatever little crisis had occurred and I wouldn’t get in as much trouble.  Now, to be honest, I can’t tell you if that worked, cause if it did, I sure would have hated to see what trouble would have been like otherwise.

Yep, the perspective of time often helps us understand what we couldn’t see before, even with plenty of light on the subject. 

You know those plastic spray bottles?  The ones that you can buy empty in the store, or maybe come with window cleaner or some other cleaning product?  Fill one of those things with white gas and set it to mist and as long as you pump the trigger handle at the right interval; instant floating fireball.  Learned that one from my eldest brother I did.

I remember quite clearly aping the pied piper one night.  Walking around a forest, led by a floating fireball of flaming white gas, trailed by an array of disheveled, dusty, grimy boy scouts.  Trees, fallen leaves, rocks, everything within a circle of, oh, must have been 60 feet clearly lit up and discernable.  Not only that, but even though it was fall and the forest was close to 8,000 feet up, and it was midnight or a bit later, I was comfortable in just my tee shirt and shorts.  

Now back then I would have been loath to admit that what I was doing was just a touch dangerous.  And I must acknowledge that the following morning there was no hair on my right hand and the skin on my fingers look suspiciously like I had fallen asleep in deep shadow with just my fingers extending into the sunshine.  But now, I mean, come on…misting fire?; from a plastic container?, in the dry woods at the end of a long summer, miles from the closest fire station or burn ward?  

Looking back on it, maybe those town odds makers had a better understanding of the intellectual level we were operating from than I had thought.

© 2015 Marty Vandermolen, All rights reserved