It was a crisp fall weekend, and the scouts were going to a campout at the old site at Gun Farm. Gun Farm was a favorite outing for our scout troop as it entailed shooting, and all scouts loved shooting. The farmer who owned Gun Farm as it was called by our scouts, had taken a back hoe and scooped out a nice little 50 foot range for the use of .22 rifles by the boy scout troops he let use the wooded parts of the property. And of course, we loved to take him up on his generosity.
But this outing was to be a bit different. Once in a while our scout master, Mr. Van, would come up with an idea that made us wonder whose side he was on. This weekend was a father and son outing. A number of father's would be coming along, to share in the great outdoors experience. Of course, we young scouts always looked on these outings as a chance to be away from home and parental guidance, so we could see no real reason to take some parents along. But Mr. Van had made the declaration, and so it was a done deal. Once Mr. Van had pronounced it, it was written in stone.
It really wasn't so bad after all. We got the camp set up in record time, if only so we could get to the range and start shooting the earliest second we could. There was ammo waiting to be burned up. One of the father's along was my own, and he had his old Colt Woodsman with him. He and Mr. Van had fun shooting at some tin cans, pine cones set atop the target frame posts, and even targets. I have to admit I was proud of dad's ability with that old Colt, but of course it was his only gun, so maybe the old saying "Beware the one gun man" was true. He sure knew how to use that old .22 pistol.
Too soon it was time start the dinner fires, and cook up the can of hobo stew. But Mr. Van had the dad's start a camp fire with one match. And one match only. Mr. Van was a stickler for economy, and stressed that any outdoorsman should be able to do a one match fire. Then he announced that it really was a one match deal, with no modern lighters allowed. Since my dad always used his old Zippo, I got a little worried. I don't think I'd ever seen him use a match for anything. In those days, the Zippo was king of all lighters. There was maybe a Ronson around once in a while, but nine times out of ten if a man took out a lighter, it was a Zippo.This was many years before the advent of the disposable lighter, so flicking the Bic was far in the future. We scouts watched while our dad's got ready to make a one match fire.
Most of the dad's seemed to halfway get it. Lots of small twigs were collected, sticks of all sizes, and under Mr. Van's critical eye, they did the deed as they saw fit. Of course, Mr. Ryerson, Bobby Ryerson's dad tried to cheat a bit. He disappeared a bit over by the car's that were parked at the edge of the woods. When he came back, he had a hatchet and chopped up some large bits of lumber. He could have started a cabin with some of what he had there. I was watching dad though. I had never thought of my dad as an outdoorsman per se, although he liked the outdoors. He was gathering up tiny twigs, some pine cones, and small sticks, and two flat rocks. I watched him carefully, and wondered what he was up to. Dad was a sort of city guy, worked in Washington D.C., and was always an enigma to me. So I watched. I knew he had only his little Case Peanut, his Zippo that he couldn't use, and the normal stuff in his pockets. Dad always carried all sorts of things in his pockets. I think he was into EDC decades before the term came about.
He took the flat rocks, and ground up one of the pine cones to an almost fine powder, then laid it in a tiny pile in the middle of some scraped down ground with some stones around it. Then, he took some dry twigs and whittled them down with the peanut that was his sole pocket knife. I knew dad was almost obsessive about keeping the little knife sharp, but he was shaving almost translucent slivers of wood from the sticks. They just curled up in tight form from the thin sharp blade. These, he piled up on the ground next to the powdered up pine cone. He took some of the thin shavings, and set them around the pile of brown dust of the ground up pine cone. Then he shaved some bigger sticks with the pocket knife. Taking a steeper cut, he halved and then quartered the sticks, and set them to hand. I had always enjoyed watching dad use his little pocket knife, thinking that he worked more like a surgeon operating than anything else. Like everything else dad did, he was working slowly, with forethought and planning, using his little Case like a precision tool in his hands instead of just a knife. It was so much fun watching dad work with the peanut, that I almost missed what Bobby's dad was doing on the next fire pit over.
Mr. Ryerson had shown up dressed more for golf than camping, and he'd never been out in the woods before. The closest he'd ever been to woods was when he hit a ball into the rough on the golf course he played at. So far, he'd chopped up a few large sticks, and had laid log size wood up in the stone encircled fire pit he was working at. He seemed to be in a very jovial mood, not at all serious about the task that our scoutmaster had laid before us. That of the one match fire. He had his back to us, so I couldn't see what he was doing, but I heard Bobby clear enough.
"Dad, what the heck are you doing?" Bobby exclaimed loudly.
"Hush up, boy. We're just gonna give it a little help!" Mr. Ryerson told his son. Then he turned. As he did so, I suddenly smelled the sharp reek of gasoline on the crisp fall air.
"Hey, Van, I've got your one match fire all ready for ya!" Mr. Ryerson called out.
Mr. Van turned from where he'd been standing talking with Mr. Stevens, looking over toward Bobby's dad, with a slightly annoyed look on his face. Then, while we all watched in what would turn out to be horror, Mr. Ryerson struck a match on the sole of his nicely polished loafer, and tossed it on the woodpile. The effect was amazing. There was a giant FOOOM, and a bright orange mushroom of flame exploded from Mr. Ryerson's campfire setup. I don't know how, but he'd got a jar full of gasoline, and used it all on his campfire. Bits of burning debris flew in all directions, and for a frantic few minutes, all the scouts and dad's where busy as bee's stomping out small fires that were starting in the dry leaves of the fall woods. Finally, when all was under control, we waited for the real explosion. Mr. Van was confronting Mr. Ryerson.
"What, in the blue blazes of hell were you thinking?" Mr. Van demanded of Mr. Ryerson. We all watched stunned, both by the event, and the fact that Mr. Van, who never cursed, was starting to do do so. "Not only was this to be a demonstration of fire building, but of character. Following of set rules for safety sake. You have set an example of what not to do for these young men, that of cheating. Not to mention almost burning down the woods on another man's property."
"I…didn't think…it would do that" Mr. Ryerson stuttered.
"No, you didn't think at all, and that is the problem. You will leave now." Said Mr. Van.
"Leave?" asked a stunned Mr. Ryerson.
"Yes, leave. As in remove yourself from this scouting activity right now. Or do you need for me to make it more clear to you?"
Mr. Ryerson turned and made to walk to his car, and called out to Bobby.
"Come on boy, let's blow this party." He said to Bobby.
Bobby stood a bit in shock from the quick turn of events, and hesitated. His father turned and yelled at him.
"I said lets go boy! Move it." Mr. Ryerson scolded him.
"No sir." said Bobby, shocking everyone more than his father had. "No, I'm staying to finish the weekend. You go, I'll catch a ride home with someone. You've embarrased me in front of my friends and scout master, and made me ashamed to be your son. There's rules to things, and this isn't your country club where you can just do what you like. You can't make up rules as you go, or do whatever you want and make it all better because you have lots of money. Just go on. "
Bobby's father looked at his son with a stunned look, then muttered "Fine" and left. A few moments later we heard his big Caddy start and drive off down the dirt track that led back to the farmhouse and road. There was a quiet air of shock on the crowd of young scouts and the dad's that were present. We'd had a glimpse into Bobby's life that had explained quite a bit, and we were uncomfortable with it. But Mr. Van stepped in and got things going again.
"Okay, moving right along, who's next for the one match fire? Lee, you ready to give it a go?" he said, looking at my dad.
Dad smiled and nodded, and got down on his hands and knees by his carefully laid fire makings. It looked more like a work of art than a campfire site. The little pile of powdered pine cone surrounded by thin almost translucnet slivers of wood, with some twigs piled to one side. Dad looked up at Mr. Van.
"No Zippo? " he asked hopefully.
"No Zippo. One match only. You know the rules." Said Mr. Van.
"How about a no match fire?" asked dad.
Now it was Mr. Van's turn to look puzzled. Dad took out his wallet, and unzipped the inner compartment. He took out a small stub of hacksaw blade, broken off at the end just past the tiny hole where it attached to the saw. Then he took out a small bit of some kind of rod. It was gray and rough, and looked like the rod from one of those things you light up a cutting torch with. He held it down by the center of the pile of powdered pine cone, and with a quick movement of his wrist, sent a handful of sparks into the pile of tinder he'd gathered. Nothing happened. He did it again. Then a third time, and then a forth. I started to think in my mind "Aw jeez dad, why not just use a match, and not embarrass your self by…" but froze.
A small tendril of smoke was rising from the pile of pulverized pine cone, and dad knelt down farther and ever so gently blew on it. The smoke got stronger. Dad blew some more, then a single tiny yellow flame was born. Still ever so gently, dad nudged some of the translucnet slivers of wood into the center, and soon the tiny yellow flame grew, and dad fed the twigs into the fire in a tick tack toe pattern. In just a few minutes, a real campfire was crackleing away, big enough to put a Maxwell house coffee can of hobo stew on. I was proud of my dad before, when he shot so well against Mr. Van and his rifle, but this was even better. He'd made fire with a Case Peanut and a few scraps of stuff from his wallet. Not even a single match. It wan't until much later that night he admitted to me that he'd been out practicing every night for a week, after I went to bed. We were sitting by the campfire, the stars were bright over the tops of the leaf bare trees, and it had gotten colder. Some more sticks on the fire solved that. Dad took a burning stick from the fire and lit his pipe, drawing the flame into the pipe and letting out a blue gray cloud of sweet smoke.
"But why go through all that double when you can just use a match?" I asked him.
He was quiet for a bit, but that was normal for him. He often took a bit to reply, and to think about what he was gong to say first.
"Well, Life is like a campfire. In fact you could say a campfire is a very good metaphor for life. It takes a bit of careful planning, and some attention to what you do. You work too hard at it, and you can smother it, but if you don't pay enough attention to it, it will go out on you. You have to pay attention to what's going on with it, just like life. You have to plan. You learn to lay a foundation for your life, like tinder. When you get the tinder all laid out and ready, then you get the kindling ready. Sometimes this takes a bit of work. But that work will pay off later, and make things easier in the long run. Like life. You work at getting a good education, then some good job training, and if you work at it, life can be good."
This was a long speech for my dad, as he wasn't really a talkitive kind of individual. But when he had something to say, he came right out with it. Sometimes I even learned something from it.
But I just couldn't leave it at that.
"Dad, why don't you just use a bigger knife? " I asked him.
He just smiled, and took a deep pull on his pipe. Looking up at the stars, he blew a perfect smoke ring and watched it drift up and dissipate.
"Because I don't have to." was all he said.
But this outing was to be a bit different. Once in a while our scout master, Mr. Van, would come up with an idea that made us wonder whose side he was on. This weekend was a father and son outing. A number of father's would be coming along, to share in the great outdoors experience. Of course, we young scouts always looked on these outings as a chance to be away from home and parental guidance, so we could see no real reason to take some parents along. But Mr. Van had made the declaration, and so it was a done deal. Once Mr. Van had pronounced it, it was written in stone.
It really wasn't so bad after all. We got the camp set up in record time, if only so we could get to the range and start shooting the earliest second we could. There was ammo waiting to be burned up. One of the father's along was my own, and he had his old Colt Woodsman with him. He and Mr. Van had fun shooting at some tin cans, pine cones set atop the target frame posts, and even targets. I have to admit I was proud of dad's ability with that old Colt, but of course it was his only gun, so maybe the old saying "Beware the one gun man" was true. He sure knew how to use that old .22 pistol.
Too soon it was time start the dinner fires, and cook up the can of hobo stew. But Mr. Van had the dad's start a camp fire with one match. And one match only. Mr. Van was a stickler for economy, and stressed that any outdoorsman should be able to do a one match fire. Then he announced that it really was a one match deal, with no modern lighters allowed. Since my dad always used his old Zippo, I got a little worried. I don't think I'd ever seen him use a match for anything. In those days, the Zippo was king of all lighters. There was maybe a Ronson around once in a while, but nine times out of ten if a man took out a lighter, it was a Zippo.This was many years before the advent of the disposable lighter, so flicking the Bic was far in the future. We scouts watched while our dad's got ready to make a one match fire.
Most of the dad's seemed to halfway get it. Lots of small twigs were collected, sticks of all sizes, and under Mr. Van's critical eye, they did the deed as they saw fit. Of course, Mr. Ryerson, Bobby Ryerson's dad tried to cheat a bit. He disappeared a bit over by the car's that were parked at the edge of the woods. When he came back, he had a hatchet and chopped up some large bits of lumber. He could have started a cabin with some of what he had there. I was watching dad though. I had never thought of my dad as an outdoorsman per se, although he liked the outdoors. He was gathering up tiny twigs, some pine cones, and small sticks, and two flat rocks. I watched him carefully, and wondered what he was up to. Dad was a sort of city guy, worked in Washington D.C., and was always an enigma to me. So I watched. I knew he had only his little Case Peanut, his Zippo that he couldn't use, and the normal stuff in his pockets. Dad always carried all sorts of things in his pockets. I think he was into EDC decades before the term came about.
He took the flat rocks, and ground up one of the pine cones to an almost fine powder, then laid it in a tiny pile in the middle of some scraped down ground with some stones around it. Then, he took some dry twigs and whittled them down with the peanut that was his sole pocket knife. I knew dad was almost obsessive about keeping the little knife sharp, but he was shaving almost translucent slivers of wood from the sticks. They just curled up in tight form from the thin sharp blade. These, he piled up on the ground next to the powdered up pine cone. He took some of the thin shavings, and set them around the pile of brown dust of the ground up pine cone. Then he shaved some bigger sticks with the pocket knife. Taking a steeper cut, he halved and then quartered the sticks, and set them to hand. I had always enjoyed watching dad use his little pocket knife, thinking that he worked more like a surgeon operating than anything else. Like everything else dad did, he was working slowly, with forethought and planning, using his little Case like a precision tool in his hands instead of just a knife. It was so much fun watching dad work with the peanut, that I almost missed what Bobby's dad was doing on the next fire pit over.
Mr. Ryerson had shown up dressed more for golf than camping, and he'd never been out in the woods before. The closest he'd ever been to woods was when he hit a ball into the rough on the golf course he played at. So far, he'd chopped up a few large sticks, and had laid log size wood up in the stone encircled fire pit he was working at. He seemed to be in a very jovial mood, not at all serious about the task that our scoutmaster had laid before us. That of the one match fire. He had his back to us, so I couldn't see what he was doing, but I heard Bobby clear enough.
"Dad, what the heck are you doing?" Bobby exclaimed loudly.
"Hush up, boy. We're just gonna give it a little help!" Mr. Ryerson told his son. Then he turned. As he did so, I suddenly smelled the sharp reek of gasoline on the crisp fall air.
"Hey, Van, I've got your one match fire all ready for ya!" Mr. Ryerson called out.
Mr. Van turned from where he'd been standing talking with Mr. Stevens, looking over toward Bobby's dad, with a slightly annoyed look on his face. Then, while we all watched in what would turn out to be horror, Mr. Ryerson struck a match on the sole of his nicely polished loafer, and tossed it on the woodpile. The effect was amazing. There was a giant FOOOM, and a bright orange mushroom of flame exploded from Mr. Ryerson's campfire setup. I don't know how, but he'd got a jar full of gasoline, and used it all on his campfire. Bits of burning debris flew in all directions, and for a frantic few minutes, all the scouts and dad's where busy as bee's stomping out small fires that were starting in the dry leaves of the fall woods. Finally, when all was under control, we waited for the real explosion. Mr. Van was confronting Mr. Ryerson.
"What, in the blue blazes of hell were you thinking?" Mr. Van demanded of Mr. Ryerson. We all watched stunned, both by the event, and the fact that Mr. Van, who never cursed, was starting to do do so. "Not only was this to be a demonstration of fire building, but of character. Following of set rules for safety sake. You have set an example of what not to do for these young men, that of cheating. Not to mention almost burning down the woods on another man's property."
"I…didn't think…it would do that" Mr. Ryerson stuttered.
"No, you didn't think at all, and that is the problem. You will leave now." Said Mr. Van.
"Leave?" asked a stunned Mr. Ryerson.
"Yes, leave. As in remove yourself from this scouting activity right now. Or do you need for me to make it more clear to you?"
Mr. Ryerson turned and made to walk to his car, and called out to Bobby.
"Come on boy, let's blow this party." He said to Bobby.
Bobby stood a bit in shock from the quick turn of events, and hesitated. His father turned and yelled at him.
"I said lets go boy! Move it." Mr. Ryerson scolded him.
"No sir." said Bobby, shocking everyone more than his father had. "No, I'm staying to finish the weekend. You go, I'll catch a ride home with someone. You've embarrased me in front of my friends and scout master, and made me ashamed to be your son. There's rules to things, and this isn't your country club where you can just do what you like. You can't make up rules as you go, or do whatever you want and make it all better because you have lots of money. Just go on. "
Bobby's father looked at his son with a stunned look, then muttered "Fine" and left. A few moments later we heard his big Caddy start and drive off down the dirt track that led back to the farmhouse and road. There was a quiet air of shock on the crowd of young scouts and the dad's that were present. We'd had a glimpse into Bobby's life that had explained quite a bit, and we were uncomfortable with it. But Mr. Van stepped in and got things going again.
"Okay, moving right along, who's next for the one match fire? Lee, you ready to give it a go?" he said, looking at my dad.
Dad smiled and nodded, and got down on his hands and knees by his carefully laid fire makings. It looked more like a work of art than a campfire site. The little pile of powdered pine cone surrounded by thin almost translucnet slivers of wood, with some twigs piled to one side. Dad looked up at Mr. Van.
"No Zippo? " he asked hopefully.
"No Zippo. One match only. You know the rules." Said Mr. Van.
"How about a no match fire?" asked dad.
Now it was Mr. Van's turn to look puzzled. Dad took out his wallet, and unzipped the inner compartment. He took out a small stub of hacksaw blade, broken off at the end just past the tiny hole where it attached to the saw. Then he took out a small bit of some kind of rod. It was gray and rough, and looked like the rod from one of those things you light up a cutting torch with. He held it down by the center of the pile of powdered pine cone, and with a quick movement of his wrist, sent a handful of sparks into the pile of tinder he'd gathered. Nothing happened. He did it again. Then a third time, and then a forth. I started to think in my mind "Aw jeez dad, why not just use a match, and not embarrass your self by…" but froze.
A small tendril of smoke was rising from the pile of pulverized pine cone, and dad knelt down farther and ever so gently blew on it. The smoke got stronger. Dad blew some more, then a single tiny yellow flame was born. Still ever so gently, dad nudged some of the translucnet slivers of wood into the center, and soon the tiny yellow flame grew, and dad fed the twigs into the fire in a tick tack toe pattern. In just a few minutes, a real campfire was crackleing away, big enough to put a Maxwell house coffee can of hobo stew on. I was proud of my dad before, when he shot so well against Mr. Van and his rifle, but this was even better. He'd made fire with a Case Peanut and a few scraps of stuff from his wallet. Not even a single match. It wan't until much later that night he admitted to me that he'd been out practicing every night for a week, after I went to bed. We were sitting by the campfire, the stars were bright over the tops of the leaf bare trees, and it had gotten colder. Some more sticks on the fire solved that. Dad took a burning stick from the fire and lit his pipe, drawing the flame into the pipe and letting out a blue gray cloud of sweet smoke.
"But why go through all that double when you can just use a match?" I asked him.
He was quiet for a bit, but that was normal for him. He often took a bit to reply, and to think about what he was gong to say first.
"Well, Life is like a campfire. In fact you could say a campfire is a very good metaphor for life. It takes a bit of careful planning, and some attention to what you do. You work too hard at it, and you can smother it, but if you don't pay enough attention to it, it will go out on you. You have to pay attention to what's going on with it, just like life. You have to plan. You learn to lay a foundation for your life, like tinder. When you get the tinder all laid out and ready, then you get the kindling ready. Sometimes this takes a bit of work. But that work will pay off later, and make things easier in the long run. Like life. You work at getting a good education, then some good job training, and if you work at it, life can be good."
This was a long speech for my dad, as he wasn't really a talkitive kind of individual. But when he had something to say, he came right out with it. Sometimes I even learned something from it.
But I just couldn't leave it at that.
"Dad, why don't you just use a bigger knife? " I asked him.
He just smiled, and took a deep pull on his pipe. Looking up at the stars, he blew a perfect smoke ring and watched it drift up and dissipate.
"Because I don't have to." was all he said.
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