Fire

  I was kind of a juvenile delinquent, when I was in junior high.  I have already written about the shoplifting, but I also liked fire.  I really don't know why, except that it was exciting to set stuff on fire.  I watched some of my plastic army men burn and melt.  I just wanted to see what they looked like.  It wasn't a sick thing.  I was just curious.

 There were a lot of woods near my house.  The kids in the neighborhood would play in the woods.  It was fun.  There was also a creek that ran through the woods.  We didn't think about the creek being contaminated.  It was just a cool place to go on a hot day.  The creek went all the way to a larger creek called Gills which was near Forest Lake Shopping Center.  That was over a mile from my house.  We never walked the entire length of our creek, because we were scared of lions, tigers and bears.  We did walk a few blocks in the creek.

 So, what does that have anything to do with fire?  Well, I went scouting in the woods for a place to set a fire that was near the creek.  I was a Boy Scout, and I knew to set a fire near a water source.  That was the creek.  I found a place near our high school.  I cleared some brush in the woods to set a circular fire.  It was within just a few feet of the creek.  I brought along some lighter fluid and matches.  It was a dry day, and I proceeded to get the fire going.  It was kind of cool.  Then, the wind kicked up.  The fire started to spread outside of the circle and into the leaves.  I ran into the creek to get water but had forgot to bring a bucket.  I couldn't get enough water in my hands to carry to the fire.  I tried stomping it out, but that wasn't working either.  I got scared and ran home.

 A few minutes later, I had sirens heading in that direction.  Somebody had seen the smoke and called the fire department.  They put out the fire and determined that someone had set it on purpose.  They never found out who did it.  Thankfully, the fire was contained to a small area and no trees were burned.  Neither were any houses, or the high school affected.  

 It has been about 55 years since that day.  The woods were torn down much later, and a housing development went up in its place.  I never played with matches after that day.