The Great Fire

When the founding fathers laid out the plat of my home town they were men of great vision. The streets were wide, every block was precisely square and through the middle of each city block ran an alley approximately twenty feet wide. No one really owned it, but it served the purpose of a location for trash cans and all sorts of activity for an inventive child. It was an area of freedom because fences and building usually blocked the view of the alley from any parent. As a part of garage disposal, prior to any clean air acts, we were allowed to burn the trash and a part of my duties around the house was to carry the trash out and start a fire in our 55-gallon metal drum that served as the major trash can. Since I had to start a fire in the drum I was allowed to take two matches with me to start the fire. One morning it only took one match to start the trash fire, so I put the other match in my pocket and went on with my business. Much later in the day while playing in the alley I noticed a stack of limbs leaning against a neighbor’s fence and I thought to myself, that would certainly make a great fire. Remembering that I had a match in my pocket I proceeded to start a small fire within the limbs. To my surprise the fire almost instantly grew to a roaring blaze and the neighbor’s fence was completely on fire. I immediately ran around the corner and jumped into the sand box that we had in the back yard and acted like I had been there all along. It seemed like minutes and I heard the fire truck sirens approaching my neighborhood. The fire was quickly extinguished and only the fence was destroyed. Later in the evening my father asked me to walk with him out to the alley, so we could look at the results of the fire. I really didn’t want to go with him but there really wasn’t a way out of it. When we got out there he asked me if I knew who started the fire and without missing a beat I said that I didn’t have any idea. He then said, “Well I’m glad you don’t because I sure wouldn’t want to have a son who would be involved in something as terrible as this.” WOW, that was all he said and that was all he did but, that cut me to the quick. Unfortunately, I did not step up and take responsibility for the fire and his words haunted me for the next twenty-five years. On my thirtieth birthday I couldn’t take it anymore, so I asked my father if he remembered the fire that destroyed the Gonzalez’s fence. He said yes, he certainly did. I then said, “Dad, I set that fence on fire.” He responded by saying, “Yes, I knew you did, I just wondered how long it would take for you to let me know.” That was the worse punishment I ever received!