Fight Fire with Gas

(Age 9) Being the curious kid I was and living in the woods, I was always watching the animals to see how they act and go about their daily lives.  I happened across an armadillo down near the water's edge, so I decided to see it close up.  Well it smelled me and took off so I ran after it.  It disappeared into a hole in the ground under our embankment (there was a sharp grassy slope from the edge of our property down to the river's bank).  I wanted it to come back out so I poked sticks inside, yelled and even stomped on the ground above the hole but he wouldn't come out.  So I decided to smoke him out.  I went and got mom's lighter, bundled some grass, tossed it in and and lit it.  Well, the hole caught fire, the surrounding grass caught fire, then the entire embankment of wild grass and weeds was on fire.  Not knowing what to do, I ran around the fire, up the slope and went and got my mother.  She of course screamed, grabbed the water hose and began to try and douse the ever growing fire.  Being well pump water, the strength of the water wasn't that good.  As I stood by her and watch the trifling effort to use water, she turns to me and says "you did this, wait til your father gets home", and hits me in the head with the water hose nozzle.  Well being young and naive, I still knew anger and that's what she did...she made me angry.  She was shouting orders for me to get a pan from the kitchen, put water in it and throw the water on the fire.  I'd show her, in my angry state I went to the shed with the pan and put gas in it instead.  I guess I was thinking I would hinder her efforts by putting the gas on the fire.  Well, let's just say it backfired.  When I got close to the fire, and threw the gas on it, a HUGE fireball went up where the gas went into it.  I was shocked, she was shocked .....she stopped dousing to understand what just happened.  After a few seconds she understood what I did and began to beat me with the hose.  This only lasted a few seconds because the fire was still burning and she knew she couldn't waste time.  I was ordered to my room without dinner and to wait for my father to get off work.  About an hour after it started, the fire burned itself out, apparently our grass in the yard was to thinned out for it to catch on fire.  I didn't get a whippin' for it, but I did get threatened within an inch of my life, and told how sorry I was.  I don't know what became of the armadillo.

Tree Meets House

(Age 10) There was a family of flying squirrels in a tree next to our house, living back in the woods flying squirrels were not uncommon.  Anyway I wanted to see the whole family fly for me one day, so I shoved a whole roll of papertowels into a hole in the tree (it was slowly dying and was almost hollow in the middle) and lit it on fire to try and smoke the squirrels out.  My plan worked and they took off everywhere gliding here and there.  After I accomplished my goal I took a waterhose and doused the inside of the tree where the roll of papertowels had been.  Satisfied that I had covered up what I did I went in and ate dinner and went to bed.  The next day when I was getting off the bus (bus stop is about a mile from my house thru the woods) I saw my mother there waiting to pick me up, I knew 2 things, either we were going to town, or something was wrong because she never picks me up from the bus stop just to be nice.  As I walked to the car I knew the latter was correct, she was very upset about something and was yelling inside rolled up windows and pointing at the empty passenger seat.  I slowed my walk to delay the unavoidable as much as I could.  When I got there I was told I was going to be beat so bad I won't walk for days, and that I am the worst child ever...I kept asking what I did but was never answered.  When we go to the house I saw what she was so upset about and knew instantly I did it and there was no way I could get out of it.  The tree had broke in half and fell over on the house.  It apparently smoldered all night and re-ignited during the day - but the fire didn't consume the tree, instead just burned on the inside enough to weaken it and fell over....onto the the house.  There was all of our neighbors with saws and crowbars trying to get the tree off the house, I didn't get a chance to say hi because I was yanked into my bedroom with the door locked and no supper.  Hours later, after all the neighbors had gone, I was stripped of my clothes and was beat pretty bad.  What was the lesson learned you ask?  That flying squirrels don't like smoke.

Merrily Down the Stream

(Age 10) One day, while wandering thru the woods near Belle River I came across an old car that appeared to of been in a wreck.  I noticed that inside the roof of the car there was a huge piece of styrofoam, so I ripped it out to play with it.  While throwing it around I realized how light the stuff was, and of course living on the river a floating application came to mind.  I went down to the river and being high tide, it was easily launched and I began my hour long float of terror.  I floated with the current that took me to the middle of the river and then began my float towards the ocean since high tide had passed and all the water was flowing back out to the ocean.  I didn't have a paddle, stick, not a single luxury.  I did notice a gator in the reeds but he didn't follow me as my boring ride took me to a bend.  By this time I had been floating about 30 minutes and was freaked out by how long I've been gone from home and from seeing the gator which I couldn't see anymore.  When I got to the bend I actually floated up near some reeds and grabbed hold so I would stop my momentum.  It worked, and figured I could use the reeds to pull myself against the current back to area where I launched from.  30 minutes later, and arms aching from pulling..I landed back safely at my starting point.  I pushed the styrofoam back out into the river to complete the jouney without me.  I didn't tell my parents for fear of a whipping.

Drug Thru the Mud

(Age 12) I had a motorcycle when I was growing up, it was a Honda XL75.  It was part street and part offroad bike, in other words it was a bike with mud tires and turn signals.  Living in Florida rain was very common, and so was big mud puddles in the woods.  Some puddles would get quite large and it would be fun to race thru them making a spray of mud in all directions.  Well one time, I found a real big puddle and wanted to streak thru it.  So I got up enough speed, held my feet up as I entered and watched the water began to part.  Apparently there was a big rock, or root in the water I had not anticipated on and it bounced the bike up...being not prepared with my legs up I lost my grip on the handle bar and bounced up in the seat then backwards.  As fate would have it, my pants leg caught on back right blinker and I hit the ground but did not stop.  The bike going fast, had enough momentum and continued to go thru the water....dragging me behind it.  Clearing the mud it fell over still running, I detached myself and thought how funny.  It was shortly thereafter I removed the blinkers on the back, can't have my friends seeing me being dragged thru mud like that.

Splash Down

(Age 17) One night me and my friend John Parrish was parked on the beach and drinking.  The way it worked to get a party started is you pick a nice spot, have beer, a few burnable pallets and use the CB to tell everyone where the spot is and they all converge on it for drink and be merry.  Me and John had already drank a few beers and was full moon so the beach was illuminated and we found a spot easily.  I backed the truck (I was driving his truck, small white Ford Ranger) up to the dunes on an incline facing the ocean.  He proceeded to call friends on the CB and tell them we had a spot, supplies and was ready to party.  Friends were enroute.  We sat in the truck (engine off & lights out), drank, listened to the radio and the crackle of the CB.  Well the next thing I know the truck is rocking back and forth and I say to John "wow, that's some wind".  He agrees.  Then I hear the sound of sand and seashell crushing and I turn to John and say "what's that noise", at that moment we hear a big splash sound......which meant one thing....OCEAN!!!  I hit the brakes and turned on the headlights to see waves splashing up on the hood of the truck, well John freaks out and starts screaming "crank it up, crank it up, go go go!!"  I turned the key and the last thing I really expected was the engine to start with salt water splashing on the hood and sure enough, it turned over and hit reverse and backwards we went (water all inside the truck).  We stop at the dune from where we started our dark decent and I turned off the engine, left the lights on and looked at John and said "how the hell did that just happen", he looks at me, still wide eyed and said "sometimes when you put it park, it slips out.........I forgot to tell you".

Falling Down on the Job

(Age 22)  I had recently moved to Knoxville, TN and was just hired on to work the night audit position at the downtown Hilton.  I was told I had to wear a white dress shirt, pair of blue slacks and a blue tie to match the Hilton issue jacket.  I was all dressed up for my first night of work.  Arriving in the multi level parking garage, there was ice everywhere since it was winter, I parked on the 3rd level.  I got out, put on my blue Hilton issue jacket and walked to the walkdown next to the ramp, however it was covered in thick snow so I walked slowly down the ramp, half walking and half sliding.  When I got to level 2 that goes down to level 1, it's walk ramp was also snowed over, so I began my slide / walk again.....and failed.  I slid on some black ice / oil and slid / rolled from the top of the ramp to the bottom.  Now being the person I am, in the fall I was trying to roll out of the slide or at least stop it and failed.  So from the top to the bottom I cussed and rolled, cussed and rolled.  When the fall was over, my words were still echoing in the garage and I stopped to see if anyone saw or heard, nothing.  This was good, but my clothes were covered in oil, dirt, water and one of my dress shoes was ripped open.  I looked like I got beat up by the Penzoil man.  I could not go home to change, so I walked in thru the front doors of the Hilton to meet the new fellow employees.  Everyone just stared and asked if I was alright, I explained my fall from hell to them.  And they exploded into laughter, it was then I saw how funny it was....and it was a great way to be accepted as the new guy.

That's Not How You Feed A Horse

(Age 36) Back in the fall of 2000 I visited my Uncle Terry in Colorado Springs, CO.  He owns a couple of horses and was anxious for me to try my horse wings and see how well I would do since I have never been around a horse.  When we got to the place where the horses were being housed, he thought it would be a good idea if I tried feeding it first to get it used to me.  It was a paint, nice sized horse.  Well I threw the treat on the ground as it's mass approached me, I really didn't feel comfortable with that big of an animal walking toward me.  He said " what are you doing, that's not how you feed a horse".  So he got the treat off the ground, wiped it and gave it to Montana - that's the paints' name, but I call him Dogfood.  Anyhow, after the formal introduction of me to horse, it was time to get up and ride.  After several tries I got up and it started moving, well let me tell you, either it began running or bouncing or kicking I don't know but everything happened so quickly I just dont' know I landed on the ground - be it thrown, bucked or I made some wild jump and landed on my knee (it was messed up for months).  I told this story to some friends at work and one of them named Matt Scoville wrote a song, thanks to Matt you can listen to it - listen to the MP3.