camping

“Is this a controlled burn?” The volunteer fireman asked my dad as he looked out across the kudzu patch with flames leaping halfway up the ancient pecan tree.

“Does it look like a controlled burn? Don’t drive on my new field lines!” My dad replied.

I still get the itch to set the yard on fire. It has been welling up in me since the last church men’s cookout we had. We have kind of given up on calling it a men’s campout since most of the men swore off camping after that year it rained all night. I guess not everyone is cut out for roughing it. So we have resigned to having a big fire at the church and eating until we can barely stay awake and then driving back home. Or staying up all night, but we have the option. This past year though something interesting happened that gave me the fire itch like I have never experienced.

We had just gotten the fire started good where all the folks on the highway in front of the church could start blowing the horn, wishing that they were a part of something so exciting, when all of the sudden here comes the volunteer fire department in one of their trucks, sirens a wailing. We watched him go by on the highway but were surprised when he pulled into the church parking lot. It was only one fireman. Now that I think back, I’m not sure he was a real fireman because he didn’t have a uniform. That would also explain his behavior that followed. He said something about receiving a call about an out of control fire and then that [REDACTED] proceeded to unroll a firehose and thoroughly dowse our campfire. I wanted to say a lot of things and do a few more, but I let Pastor do the talking because I didn’t feel like it was the best time to give the younger boys a vocabulary lesson. I’m not sure what pastor told him, but he didn’t listen.

Volunteer work; it just doesn’t pay.

So there we were; the men and the boys just sitting around the dripping firewood. Like we all just found out that Santa Claus ain’t real, and the person that told us had run over our dog and run off with our girlfriend. We were in a bad way. The only thing that really matters about the men’s cookout is the fire, and now we didn’t have one. You could see it on every face from the boys fresh out of diapers to the grey headed retirees: pure disappointment. We were downcast. Something had to be done.

I waited until I was pretty sure that the hasty volunteer had made it all the way back to the fire station before I said, “$10 to the boy that gets this fire started again.” You’d have thought I said $100,000,000 by the way those boys got after it. I wasn’t really concerned about the fireman coming back, but I wanted to waste his whole evening if he decided to. It took the eager boys about five minutes to get the fire rekindled, and just like that, morale was restored.

I have been wanting to burn something bad since then. So I set the yard on fire this week. It was glorious. My dad would’ve enjoyed watching it slowly burn off the dead grass from last year. It was the perfect day to set the yard on fire.

There are not many things as satisfying to me as burning the yard.

When I told my friend that I was going to burn the yard he asked me, “How do you keep the fire from spreading?”

I didn’t really have a good answer for that. You can’t really control a fire. You can pretend like you are controlling it, and that may make you feel better, but I suppose if the fire wants to burn something then you can’t really stop it. Any time you set a fire, you are risking it burning a lot more than you had intended. In my case this week, it didn’t burn all of what I intended. I was less in control of the fire than the wind. But I still stood there coughing in the smoke with a shovel and brazen confidence.

The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough. Proverbs 30:15-16

After I got the fire stopped where I felt was sufficient, one of my friends called me and said, “Man is everything ok? Looks like your yard caught on fire.”

I just told him it was a controlled burn.

My earliest memories of camping were Dad taking Zach and me out to Black Jack, a vast wilderness owned by the paper company I think. We would set up a little dome tent and build a fire. Dad would let us play in the fire with a stick, probably the best part for a little boy. We always camped in the fall, no sense in camping with mosquitoes and rattlesnakes.

Most of the time we roasted weenies and marshmallows, but one particular time Dad went all out and made some barbecue chicken quarters over the fire. He seasoned the chicken, wrapped it in aluminum foil and placed it on one of those flimsy folding metal grills that set over the fire. We sat patiently around the fire on our five gallon buckets staring into the flickering flames. Just before the chicken was finished cooking it began to rain. First softly then a steady drizzle, then we retreated into the tent as the bottom dropped out of the sky. The water began to rise as we sat huddled in our sleeping bags hoping for the rain to subside. After about a half an hour and half an inch of rain in the tent, Dad decided to abandon camp. We loaded our essential belongings into the truck and headed home. We ended up leaving the tent to retrieve another day, but the saddest part was that we never even got to try the chicken. I don’t think we ever camped at Black Jack after that.

From then on we camped on some relative’s property that had a small lake where we often fished. Looking back now, I realize how little I was, out of diapers, but not in school. It was Dad’s rule that you had to be out of diapers to go camping. In the mornings, we would go hunting not far from where we had camped. I would sit against a tree with Dad while Zach sat by himself a few yards away. He probably had a better chance of killing a deer by himself, because I was making too much noise playing with action figures. I never did catch the hunting fever like my brother, but I still like to go camping, and it just doesn’t feel right to go camping without a gun.

Zach and I camped with Jared and Creed once on the back border of their Dad’s property. Mr. Sherwood McDaniel, their father, had cleared the perimeter and it was here that we spent many hours playing. Zach and Creed were old enough to work at the store, so Jared and I were supposed to tend the fire until their shift was over. The gainfully employed older brothers had gone shopping before hand and brought some provisions for that night. I’m sure they got some good food but what I remember is the knock off Grapicos, they were nasty. We, the keepers of the flame, discovered that a can of Coke, knock off or genuine, will explode with a tremendous noise if you place it in the fire and forget about it. Creed and Zach were not as impressed.

While Zach was still in high school it was not very hard to talk him into camping. We’d often make the decision ten minutes before the store closed and then rush to set up in the dark. I can’t tell you how many times we camped like this as teenagers.

The older we grew, the less sleeping we did when we went camping. The most miserable part about camping is waking up about half frozen and filthy with smoke, your breath tastes like you been eating dirt all night, and then having to clean up all of the camping gear. There was a point when we stopped fooling with bringing a tent and just stayed up all night. This made it easier to camp at the drop of a hat, all we really had to pack was food. Food is the best part of camping when you’re a young man.

One night it snowed on us, a rare occasion in Alabama. It didn’t last long, but it was probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. A big bright moon shining on freshly fallen snow, a few guys sitting around a campfire not fully appreciating the moment.

I do not recommend taking your wife camping on your first anniversary.

This morning the air was crisp and cold, and full of that certain smell that comes with fall, a cool damp fragrance that almost burns. These are the conditions in which to camp.

Last year my church organized a men’s camping trip. We had two fires, one to play in and one to cook in. It drizzled rain on us all night, but the little boys that went hardly seemed to notice. I still enjoy playing in the fire, and you better believe that I still enjoy eating around the fire, but as an adult, what I like most about camping is the comradery. There is something significant about the gathering together of men for the sole purpose of fellowship.

“We’re going camping on November 1st Wesley.” I told Wesley a week ago.

“Do I need to start packing?” He replied.

Tag: camping

Controlled Burn