Smoke gets in your eyes

If you pay any attention to my wife's blog, you know that we had a run in with the law the other day.

We set out to create a slow burning fire in the back yard that would be sufficient to play two roles:  Entertainment for the 7 kids in our back yard and possibly burn some of the 20 tons of leaves we have collected.  Smart idea?  Maybe not, but certainly harmless enough.  2 basically responsible adults in attendance could deter any real problems.

Then the Fuzz showed up.

Correct.  Someone called the PoPo on us.  But when you live in Mayberry, the police and the fire department and the ambulance all use the same vehicle.  As we sat there we had the fire going, kids cooking hot dogs on willow branches, and Jodi dutifully filling bags with leaves when up yonder an ambulance pulled up and two fire fighters got out and started the decent into our little corner of tranquility.  

After pleasantries....

Them:  You know you're supposed to call before you have a fire in your backyard.  Even if it's a recreational burn.  (Is that even a real word?)

Us:  We had no idea, so sorry.  We will call you next time.  (And ask you to bring chips and drinks.)

Them:  Also, you want to burn good dry wood so you have a CLEAN burn.  With all this smoke your neighbors must have suspected a fire and that's why we got the call.

Kid in our yard: She told us to put leaves in there.(Ah, the innocence of youth)

Now, I grew up in the house of a firefighter and I was not aware that you needed to call the fire department and let them know of your backyard cookout in the fire pit.  Otherwise we would have been invited to a lot more fire pit cookouts.

As nice as an experience it was for my kids to see authority come into our backyard and set their parents straight, it was also a little too familiar to me.  It took me back to a time when I was a scout, probably the same age as my son.  On a scout camp in the foothills of Draper.  We had hiked up to the camp from the church (you could do that then, there were no houses.) Our scoutmaster was coming up to meet us from work.  We set camp, started a fire, and proceeded to play games around camp.  As the sun began to go down behind the Oquirrh Mountains, we set our attention to watching down the hills for our scoutmaster.  Draper was a sleepy town of about 6,000 at the time, and you could literally see each road and house.  We immediately noted that there was activity at the firehouse.  Then, to our excitement, a fire truck departed the firehouse and began, lights flashing, to weave through the maze of quite town streets.  We were excited to see where the fire would be as we sat perched on top of the hills with a perfect view.  We began to wager where the fire was.  We then noted that the truck turned and headed towards the canyon road, heading towards us.  Are you catching on here?  We weren't.  Funny, we thought, that the truck was heading right towards where we expected to see our scoutmaster approaching our camp.  Suddenly, as most things with kids of that age are, someone said, "Has anyone checked the fire?".  If it were a movie, the camera would then pan out and show a large orange glow up the hill from where we were.  Sprinting to the camp we noted about an acre of burnt brush and proceeded to pray and prance around the camp stomping to the best of our ability.  Emptying our night's supply of Sprite and water on every glowing ember.  When the truck arrived, guess who was the first one out of the truck?  My dad.  We had a lot of explaining to do, and I guess, looking back now as an adult, the inopportune arrival of our scoutmaster at the exact time as the fire truck probably gave him the opportunity to do some explaining as well.  All in all, no harm done.  We stayed on the mountain, amidst the smokey, crusty ground.

So, yes, I have a history with fire and authority.

I need to go now, I have to get ready for scout camp.