Sharing a Slice of Life, FIRE!!

Over at Sharing a Slice of Life, the meme this week is: FIRE.

As campers, as a couple, since 1973 or 74, Man and I have had more than our fair share of campfires.  A true ritual for campers.  Gather the wood, gather LOTS of kindling.  Build your fire, now, this is an art form for sure.  Some build in layers, square, like a building.  Others, prefer the tepee format.  Either way, you can make em small or make em huge!

Campfires are a wonderful way to relax at the end of the day, tell lots of lies, errrr, stories, especially fish stories, the big one that got away. 

Campfires are also great for cooking, s'mores, the infamous graham cracker, chocolate bar and melted, errrrr, burned marshmallows, all squished together.  My brother added his own take to this sugary delight by adding a layer of peanut butter to the graham cracker.  OHHH MYYY!!  Then there are hobo pies, want em sweet?  Try, pie filling.  Want em to be a meal?  Eggs and breakfast meat, or how bout a pizza hobo pie? Baked apples and bananas have even been enjoyed around the campfire. Popcorn can be popped, we even had a special corn popper we carried around for years, messy to clean, but fun fun fun!!  How about taking a hot dog on a stick and burning it.  Ya, that works too.  OK, we did a lot of snacking around our campfires.

Songs and guitars work well with campfires too.  Course, if you need song sheets you then must sing before dark, OR use flashlights and lanterns to read the words.

One other small thing that campfires do - - - keep ya warm on a chilly night. Of course, you have to sit close, but not so close you melt your shoes (don't ask). And, on a really c-o-l-d night, you will find us standing with our backsides facing the flames.

Campfires have also been known to keep mosquitos away, sorta.  If you sit in the smoke, or rather, if you can stand to sit in the smoke.  Most of us play musical chairs with the smoke, so fall back on plan B to fight the skeeters, it's called bug spray!  LOL

Now, you know, you have to have refreshments, hot tea, coffee, cold pop, beer, wine or some delish concoction that usually involves a dash of liquor.  On a really cold fall night, son # 3 introduced me to hot chocolate, liberally laced with butterscotch schnapps, and it is still a favorite of mine during the cold weather months. 

But, maybe the very best thing to do around a campfire is the simple act of sitting together as a family, and staring into the fire, letting the flames take our minds to lands of imagination far far away. Or we might contemplate life' great mysteries, like how did that fire get those amazing green and blue colors (shhhhh, it is the copper trash that does that little marvelous trick).

Above, summer of 1978, from left, Man's father (with cigarette hanging as he slept); Man's mother; Son # 2 (engrossed in the fire);  Moi;  my father; my father's friend (engrossed in the fire, sorry, her name long forgotten); Son # 1 (also engrossed in the fire).  Son # 3 would have been a baby, and safely tucked into his portacrib by this time of the evening.  Campfire down in right bottom of the photo, yep, there is a fire there!  LOL

Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

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