Tomfoolery 101 With Professor Pops, Part Three: His Pyro Side

This is the final installment of a 3-part essay, proof that my father is a big kid at heart. To read "Part One: General Troublemaking," click here. For the part two, 
" 'Splosions," click here.

“Come over here and light this,” Dad says to me. He’s holding a box of wooden matches and I see a can of gasoline on the ground behind him. I walk my way to the end of the lawn where the ditch begins. It’s another hot day in Minnesota, the mercury pushing mid 90s, so I’m not thrilled with the idea of creating any more heat. And even though it’s suffocating us with humidity, we haven’t seen rain in a week or so.

Dad is in his usual cabin uniform: He’s shirtless, wearing his turquoise and pink striped swim trunks, white tube socks, and brown leather loafers. His gray and white hair sneaks out the side of a flat brimmed, mesh-backed baseball hat.

He holds out matches. “Wait, how old are you,” he asks.

“Fourteen,” I say while eyeing the red and blue box. “Why?”

“Perfect,” he says, hiding a grin. “Because if you light this, they won’t prosecute because you’re a minor.”

I laugh and grab the box out of his hand. He’s made a line of gasoline across the edge of the ditch near the driveway, perpendicular to the road. “The wind is just right,” he says, a phrase that becomes popular for my dad when it comes to fire.

I light a match and throw it onto the line of dry grass made moist by the flammable liquid. The match ignites the target with a “whoosh” and the flames race down the line and end at the gravel just before the road.

He’s right. The wind is just right and the fire gradually eats up the slightly overgrown ditch. The flames never reach higher than two feet until they happen upon the telephone pole in the middle of the ditch. The flames, hungry for something more than dead twigs and dry weeds and grasses wrap themselves around the pole and start climbing.

“Oh shit,” Dad says when the flames reach five feet and he springs into action.

He dashes for the garage, grabs an old rug, and runs to pole. The flames are seven feet high by the time he gets there so my father has to jump to reach those that are making the most progress. He swings the rug and slaps the pine-tar-lathered pole without mercy. He’s hopping, almost dancing to avoid charring his loafers or melting his Polyester trunks. The pole proves to be a tough match for my old man, but finally the flames give up. “Wooooot,” he screams with excitement as he high steps it out of the flames and retreats to a spot in the shade where the wind can cool his sweat-drenched body.

…

The cabin sat directly next to a junkyard. Well, it wasn’t actually a junkyard, but it seemed the man living there was trying to fulfill a longtime dream of creating one. He was a hoarder whose collection tried and almost succeeded in suffocating his entire two-and-a-half-acre plot. His name was Aloysius Pachelke, but we called him Al Pal for short. He had a mean dog who went by Spike, obviously another attempt at impressing the elite junkyard club Al Pal wanted into.

My brother and I couldn’t help but sneak over his fence to look at all the neat crap. Apparently my parents had their eye on it as well, but instead of admiring the sheds with bullet holes in their windows or mounds of ancient oilcans, Dad and Mom wanted the land underneath it all. They purchased the lot when I was seven years old. It seemed a moronic venture because of the sheer volume of trash, but Dad was set on making the land of dead cars, fish houses, refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, an outhouse, tires, rotten lumber, railroad ties, an outhouse, a rambler, and much, much more, into a lush landscape of rolling beauty.

Dad was, and still is, the king of projects and slowly we whittled away at the massive amount of junk, even throwing clean-up parties; Dad providing beer, friends providing extra hands to dig through and throw away Al Pal’s treasure.

These parties, and the work we did in between, produced a massive amount of wood and other “burnable” items. Truckload after truckload was piled in the center of the main clearing and every weekend it grew higher and wider. We’d make an event of burning a heap, then start amassing another once we cleaned up.

One pile in particular was colossal. We had been collecting for months and it stood fifteen feet high and had enough combustibles to fill a four-car garage. The burn weekend was scheduled and Dad invited his side of the family. Not surprisingly most of them showed up because he had a reputation for his bon fires: they were hot, humongous, and fun as hell.

We set up a perimeter with lawn chairs once the sky was a rich blue with dusk and Dad grabbed a plastic gas can. He turned into a darker version of Old McDonald and with a splash splash here and a splash splash there, the pile was ready. He lit the gasoline spots that were facing the wind so it could spread to the rest of the mound without having to light them all. Apparently the wind wasn’t “just right,” or maybe he got too impatient because he started to light all the splash spots and upon finishing he threw the near-empty gas can on top of the stack of wood.

“He’s nuts,” said one friend. “Is he trying to kill us,” asked one of my uncles.

We were already moving back steadily because of the heat, but for every foot the flames advanced on the can, we moved back four. The flames drew closer and our nervous conversation about the can increased until finally a “pssssss” sound came from it followed by an anti-climactic implosion of melting plastic.

Something else caught our attention. One of the larger wooden items on the pile, an old fish house standing eight feet high, six feet wide, and six feet deep, was being enveloped by what looked like a cloud of larger insects. Some of us braved the heat and crept closer to investigate. “Bees!” shouted my brother and those on that side of the inferno shot out of their chairs and ran to safety. The ignorant creatures had set up shop in the fish house, creating a good-sized hive that hung from the roof of the wooden box. We watched as one by one the wasps dive-bombed their way into an unexpected and fiery death.

Our final worry came when the blaze was at full rage. We had strategically placed the stack far enough, or at least we thought it was far enough, away from the nearest power line. We were wrong. Oddly enough, even if your flames aren’t licking at something, the heat produced will melt most things nearby. We hadn’t expected the flames to go 25 feet high so the power line became another casualty. It didn’t fall, but the plastic casing disintegrated.

Many people joined in the joyous occasion: family, friends, neighbors and strangers who drove by slowly. One odd couple that stopped by was two officers from the Department of Natural Resources. They were across our 7-mile lake in their boat and saw smoke and brilliant light radiating into the sky. They decided to have a few words with Dad.

“Shit! I forgot to get a fire permit,” he said as he took off to meet the officers down at the dock.

“What does that mean,” I asked with fear.

“It means we may lose the cabin,” said my sister.

I found out after 10 minutes of intense terror that Dad had indeed purchased the permit and she knew all along. My mind sickly shot to a place where their bodies burned in the pile while I laughed, a sinister cackle nearby. I quickly extinguished the thought, embarrassed that my fostered thirst for fire had included vengeance.

Alright. Note to self, I thought, never let crazytown out of his cellar.

…

There are seven fire trucks parked on the road that butts up against our land and two of them have driven to within striking distance of the fire. Around 20 to 30 people that we’ve never met have meandered onto our yard and are watching three fire fighters extinguish the hot mess while another 13 stand around. It appears as if this is the most action they’ve had in over a year.

Once again it was the wind’s fault. Dad again says it was “ust right” so he had to pull another stunt, one that wouldn’t end as well as the controlled burn I explained above. Dad, always one to avoid prosecution, had the perfect plan.

It’s just past 11a.m. Dad lights a bunch of scrap wood and shingle bags 10 feet west of the overgrown lake shore he wants to burn. It’s a small fire with rocks surrounding it, but apparently large enough to ward off any suspicion of foul play. The wind is heading east, setting the stage for the perfect excuse.

“An ember from this fire,” says Dad pointing at this fire, “must have jumped and landed in these dead leaves over here,” He points at these dead leaves over here.

“Yup, we see it a lot, sir,” says the Fire Chief with a nod, obviously lying. “You just have to be more careful, especially on a windy day like this.”

Of course, ladies and gentleman, we know that Dad is never so careless. He is methodical in his shenanigans; calculating in his mischief. He knows damn well what he is doing and he would’ve gotten away with it, had it not been for the power-tripping man in the boat.

Before all the flashing lights and nosey spectators arrive, the flames are gradually eating away at the overgrowth. It has been ten minutes since that pesky ember “jumped” and the tame and steady fire is about 10 feet into the brush. A fellow fishing on the lake spots the smoke and directs his driver over to smell out the wrongdoer. He spots Dad, dancing in a Speedo (not really) and lands the boat on our dock to give him a talking to.

Now, the blaze doesn’t have anywhere to go, cornered on all sides by the unburnable. To the north is the lake. It’s pretty hard to burn water, some would say impossible. To the south is lush, well-maintained and watered green grass, the kind that would take a whole lot of consistent heat to dry out and burn. To the east is more water as the shore juts south causing the strip of burnable to come to a point. And to the west, well, the fire isn’t going west because of the “just right” wind.

Having said this, douche monkey gets all huffy puffy and scolds Dad, saying he used to work for the DNR and Dad needs a permit and can’t have brush fires, or some bullshit like that. He berates Dad with his all knowing, questioning him about this and than in a rude manner, then demands to see my father’s I.D.

“Let me see your I.D.,” retorts Dad. Of course the guy refuses. “Then get off my dock.”

BOOM! Take that sticker of nose in other people’s business!

Well man clown doesn’t take kindly to Dad’s rightful ejection of him from the premise. He gets on his cell phone and calls the fire department telling them of a tiny man who started a fire intending on burning down the entire state of Minnesota.

The fire department spots the blaze from the road, deems it a 4-alarm, and calls for back up. Back up calls for back up and on and on until there’s a ridiculous amount of people on the way to squelch a fire that has moved 15 feet in the past half hour.

The first truck starts driving onto the yard and Dad turns to Mom. “Honey,” he says handing her his Whiskey Water, “hide my drink.” 

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