As I was helping my mom with her computer issues, my sweet son came in with a magnifying glass and a not so innocent smile on his face. I looked at him, (okay, most likely glared) and asked what he was up to. 'Nothing', he says. And then that grin gets a little bigger. My kid does not know how to lie! Standing in front of me is a mischievous little man smelling of guilt holding a magnifying glass on a hot summer day. Someone was in trouble!!!
Curse that Bill Nie!
Again, he denyed it. I went outside to make sure there is no crazy fire going on in the front yard. There wasn't but you could smell the burnt leaf. He admitted to his misbehavior and was given a swift kick in the pants and I made him promise not to do it again! (And I yelled at him too! That was the worst)
I was reminded of growing up in Sandy, in a subdivision with a gully on the north and the field on the northwest. The boys in the neighborhood had a club that met in that field. It was for boys and girls were not allowed, which made me more interested that I normally would have been.
One afternoon, my brother and cousin came running into the basement, a door from the back yard, looking really guilty. You could hear fire engines from a distance. We all went outside, including the unusually quiet boys, to check on what was going on. Summer was boring so anything was entertaining (which was probably the problem in the first place!) and we saw black billows of smoke coming from the direction of the field. My biggest fear was it was a house fire, but the smell said differently. We all tore off on our bikes to the end of the subdivision, or as close as we could get because of the fire.
It was huge! The fire had to be fought from both sides of the gully. It went into the field. People living in the surrounding areas were watering down their lawns and houses, just in case. About 45 to an hour later, I was younger so who knows much time it really was, all that was left were the occasional hot spots and a few fire trucks.
It was the talk of the neighborhood. My brother and cousin, normally loud and obnoxious boys, were quiet and disappeared once we reached home. It turns out those two took sparklers down to their club and were lighting them. And that is how the fire started! They never got caught, at least to the best of my knowledge. It was a hot, dry summer so maybe it could have been anything or anyone, but I am pretty sure it was the two of the them!
The gully caught fire a few other times while growing up, but that one was the worst. And, in the end, it made for exciting story to take back to your school teacher at the end of summer!
Hey, I was a kid. I had my priorities!
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