Roasting by an Open Fire

          As I sit down to write this little piece, I breathe deeply and enjoy the aroma of wood smoke that wafts up from my clothing to wrap my office in a comforting blanket of scented memories. 

“What stinks?” says my daughter as she passes my office door.

“She who smelt it…, oh you mean the wood smoke?” I reply.  I find it deeply offensive when she refers to any smells in my vicinity as “stink.”  Stink? You couldn’t get further from the truth.  This is the stuff of boyhood memories.  Not all of these recollections are pleasant, but they are my past and have made me what I have become.

          I recall sharing a compassionate shoulder, when my friend’s house burned down and he thought he had lost his pet rabbit to the blaze.  Incredibly, there had been no need for all that sissy compassion stuff, because his parents had amazingly taken his rabbit to live out in the country that very morning.  Wow, can you believe the luck?

          There is a memory of playing ranch hands with my buddy Derrick.  That day I learned that if you are going to be pretending you are a ranch hand out on the range branding cattle, there are several things you shouldn’t do.  First, don’t make real fires.  Second, don’t put real metal in those real fires. Most importantly, don’t let your clumsiest friend play the ranch hand while you play the cow.  The good news about that is the doctor says that after one more surgery the branded part of my anatomy will look almost as good as new.

          I also hold closely many memories of talking with friends around a campfire in the deep woods.  Or lately, in my lazy old age, I have been talking with them around the fire pit in my back yard. 

          Last evening, as we stood around the fire, tendrils of smoke from the crackling teepee of fir and cedar wrapping around my legs, I was struck by the recollection of a long ago scouting trip along the Pacific Ocean.  This trip was on the Olympic Peninsula, on the coast of Washington State.  I was a young teen and had spent the previous two days along the beach practicing my swearing.  As our last night of the hike approached the leaders were, of course, wishing me warm thoughts, mainly about the warm place I was likely to spend eternity for all of the swearing I had been doing.

I had spent much of that day saving huge amounts of time over my hiking companions by wading all of the coastal streams instead of wasting precious exploration time walking half of a mile upstream to the bridges. 

          One stream in particular stands clear in my memory.  I knew to take off my pack and hold it above me as I waded, since I was pretty sure that the water was deeper than my waist.  I chuckled as the water reached my waist, knowing that I had outsmarted the stream.  I didn’t feel quite as smart when the water suddenly closed in over my head for three or four long steps, but upon reaching the other side I was pleased to find that my pack was still dry.  All would have been fine if gravity and that crumbling stream bank hadn’t conspired to throw my pack back down into the water that I had so bravely crossed.  That point wouldn’t be important except that I was standing in dripping wet clothes as the spare, and previously dry, clothes in my pack thirstily soaked up as much of the stream as they could.

          As luck would have it, we were scouts and well versed in the art of fire building.  At the end of that day’s hike I coaxed a first year scout into building a camp fire that would surely have my clothes dry in minutes.  Or at least before the frigid spring evening winds off of the Pacific Ocean turned me into a human popsicle. 

          Again, I used my incredible intellect to increase efficiency, and reduce effort.  I decided not to waste time removing my clothes, but instead decided that they would dry just as well on me, and keep me warm in the process. 

          It was quite toasty, so I had to keep turning in circles.  After a while one of the fathers asked if there was a thermometer around because I looked done to him.  I was too much better a man than him to react.

          “Hey Ken,” Nathan’s father said. “I would have thought your pants would be clean after all that walking through water you did today.”

          “They are.  If you were wearing your glasses, Phil, you’d see they are as clean as they were the day I bought them.”  I knew I had him with that one.  “Wait, you are wearing your glasses.”  Looking down at my pants I saw that the left leg was brown from the cuff up to about mid-calf.  It looked like I had walked through bogs all day rather than clear running streams.  Then I noticed something extraordinary.  The brown was moving up my pant leg. 

Amazing as it seems, a coal had jumped out of the fire and landed on the cuff of my then bone dry pants.  There had been no flame, just a gentle smokeless smoldering that crept its way up. 

“I’m on fire!” I yelled.

“Eternity’s a long time, Ken.  You might want to start getting used to it now.” Someone said.  I think it was Phil, though to his credit he was the first one to throw water.  He missed the flames and hit me in the chest with the water, but it did run down to my pant leg and eventually extinguish the flames.  Before the fire was put out, it had burned to just above my knee.  Amazingly, my shin was left unscorched.  However, in track that spring I became known as Hairless Lefty.  I guess there are worse things to be called. 

A few years ago, I went on a campout in the Cascade Mountains, with a few friends.  We hiked in about eight stinking, sweaty miles to our favorite lake.  We started out stinky, and the sweaty part of the hike just made that worse.  I soon began to express my happiness over having just purchased a pair of the most comfortable boots ever made. 

I believe those boots were handmade somewhere in the Swiss Alps, and were reputed to be the most comfortable boot in the world.  This was reputed, mostly by me.  I hadn’t actually heard them reputed by anyone else, but I surely made up for their previous lack of notoriety.  Jealousy soon became apparent, and I was forced to walk on ahead in comfortable solitude while sticks and pine cones rained down around me.

That evening at the camp fire while all the rest of my aging buddies grumbled about blisters and sore tired feet, I spent a short amount of time reputing again on the comfortable ride my new boots had given me on the hike up.

While the others whined and begged for pity I sat with my back against my pack, my feet stretched out to warm by the fire.  Then for the first time since we had begun our trek, I noticed a trace of a smile tug up at one corner of Richie’s mouth. 

“Well hallelujah," I said, “You’re finally going to start enjoying yourself.  Good, it’s about time.  This great clean mountain air and that glistening mirror of a lake have finally brought you around.”

“Yeah Ken, that’s it.”  Richie said, with a vaguely familiar smirk growing on his face.  I knew that look.  I had seen it before, and I knew it for the pure evil that it signaled.  I just wondered what had produced it.  I suddenly felt a weight develop deep in my guts, and could feel the thud of my heartbeats as they resonated through that weight.  A cold oily slick of perspiration beaded up and dripped from my forehead, and a uncontrollable trembling began throughout my nervous system.  That smirk can do that to any one.

I remembered where I had seen that look before.  I had seen it in 110 degree weather, with Richie behind the wheel of my car.  We were outside of Las Vegas, with our friend Ted running behind us for a half a mile, his hand stretched out vainly trying to grasp the bumper of my Datsun B210.    Sure, Richie had had his reasons then; something to do with Ted’s chili dinner the night before.  Richie had been wearing that same evil smirk then and I worried about why it had surfaced again.

“Hey Ken, you know, I have to say those are some really nice boots.  Maybe you want to tell us a little more about ‘em?” Richie said.  As he was talking to me, he elbowed Mel, beside him. 

“No.  Maybe later.” I murmured.  I knew something was up.  My sense of self-preservation had been put on red alert.  As it turned out, it was too late.  The rubber sole on my right boot had heated up so much that the glue attaching it to the rest of the boot had liquefied and the sole slid off onto the dry mountain soil; glue side down. 

Apparently, those Swiss Alps boots didn't have the soles sewn to the boot, as is the practice with pretty much every other boot in the world.  Someone should talk to those Swiss about that.  I leapt to my feet in a cat-like effort to save my boots.  Unfortunately, hot melted glue is about as slippery as greased Teflon, and my left boot still had a thick gooey layer waiting for me. 

I spun a graceful pirouette as my second boot parted company with its sole, and I landed ungracefully on my derrière, in the fire.  I saved myself, and surprisingly, my pants from any fire damage.  This is because of my quickly employing what I like to call “the poodle scoot”, which extinguished the fire on my hind parts as they were scuffled quickly across the campsite. 

I would have returned the boots, but my friends had stuck the soles of them against a tree while the glue was still hot.  I figured it would be pretty much impossible to heat the soles back up to peeling temperature without burning down the tree and starting a forest fire, so there they remain to this day.  I think they are listed as an attraction is several hiking guidebooks. 

I hiked out of the mountains the next day with what amounted to the world’s most expensive pair of camp fire scented slippers.

After the tragedy of the burning boots, I decided that American made was the way to go.  A was able to find a pair of fireproof boots which were made in Detroit.  They seemed just the right footwear for me. 

The next year, the same friends and I made the second annual trip, to the same lake as the previous year.  I thought this strange.  The annual trip was supposed to visit new destinations each year, but for some reason, the rest of the gang insisted.  Apparently, they had such a good time there the year before, they wanted to go back.  They said it was a place that was good for the sole.  They are an odd bunch.

The trip progressed in pretty much the same fashion as the year before.  There was one notable exception. My fireproof boots were fireproof.  Unfortunately, they were not insulated. The steel toe and shank turned out to be great conductors of heat.  Though the boots were fireproof, my feet were not.  Luckily, Richie had brought along a king sized first aid kit; known for some strange reason as the “Ken Kit.”  As I mentioned, my friends are an odd bunch.

For the record, I think it is rather childish for a grown man to name his first aid kit. 

The hike out the next day wasn’t too bad.  The guys carried my gear, and I got to wear my world’s most expensive campfire scented slippers on my blistered feet.

          Some of my fondest memories have been created around a camp fire.  To this day I keep a one legged pair of jeans stapled to my garage wall by my workbench.  The sight of that one amputated leg with the blackened fringe at mid-thigh, and the slightly charred smell, never fail to bring back memories of the good old days.  Hanging next to the pants is a pair of highly campfire scented slippers. This display often reminds me to make it to church on a fairly regular basis.

Costa Rican Firewater

Costa Rican Firewater

by Ken Goree

         “Here, Señor Goree, take this,” said Don Juan.  “No do not bite yet.  We all bite together.”  The short Costa Rican man, reached up to hand me a tender blue-green leaf he had stripped from a shrub.  He then continued handing out leaves to the rest of our group, children and adults.  With a flourish Don Juan held his leaf aloft and proclaimed, “Uno, dos…and for the Americans, three.  Now we eat together.”  He then put his leaf into his mouth and motioned for the group to do the same. 

         A shower of masticated green pulp sprayed instantly in all directions.  A chorus of spitting, retching and other assorted sounds of disgust accompanied this.  Don Juan and I continued to placidly chew our leaves as the group of twenty around us spat the gooey remains of some mysterious Costa Rican plant into the bushes. 

         “Mr. Goree, are you going to swallow that?” one of the children asked.

         “I will if he does,” I said, jerking a thumb in the direction of Don Juan. 

         “Si, of course I will Amiga,” Don Juan said and made a demostrative affair of swallowing.  “It is very healthy for you.  This plant is why I am so, strong, smart and oh so muy guapo!”

         “How long is it going to take to work on me,” I asked.

         “Oh, sadly, I fear you started much too late in life for that, Señor.  It will not hurt you, and it will definitely get rid of worms, if you have any.”

         “How long does this taste last?” my daughter asked.

         “Until you are eighteen,” I said.  “And, if you kiss a boy, he’ll taste it, too.”

         “Dad!”

         “Only until you replace it something else, Chica.  Try this,” Don Juan told her.  He kicked at the ground and uncovered a root just under the surface.

         “Dad, what is it?” Carly whispered to me when Don Juan was turned to talk to another child. 

         “I think it is ginger root.  Do you want me to try it first?”

         “Uh, huh.”

         I scraped away the surface of the root with my pocketknife and cut loose a piece of its light amber interior.  The aroma of ginger became strong.  After taking a bite to make sure it was really ginger.  I cut off a piece and handed it to my daughter. 

         “Watch out, it’s spicy,” I told her.  She seemed satisfied with a nibble.

         “Come, My Friends.  I have many more plants to show you.  And my cooking cows; you must see my cooking cows.”

         As the tour of Don Juan’s Organic Farm continued, we saw the cows that cooked.  The cows didn’t really do the cooking, but the end product of their cud chewing did provide the gas that was used to cook the dinner.  Each day a boy from a neighboring farm would shovel the cows’ end product into a biodigester.  This biodigester was an enclosed tank, with a 5000-gallon capacity.  The boy would open a valve to release excess pressure.  Then he would open a hatch and shovel in the dung.  He would then add enough water to keep the “stew” moist.  At one end of the enormous tank was a hose fitting.   A hose ran from the fitting to the house.  Don Juan explained that the flammable gas produced as the dung decomposed, was piped to the house and used for everything natural gas would be used for in the United States. 

         “Wait,” Richie said, “My mom cooks with gas.”  The same notion had struck me, and I knew something the kids didn’t know yet.  We were going to be having dinner with Don Juan. 

         “Eeeew,” Richie and I chorused.

          Eventually the sounds of disgust died away; the same way the tide goes out, surging in and out but eventually fading away all together.  The excitement over the gassy cows finished and we moved on rather quickly.  The next thing that Don Juan showed us was a small tree.  All over the branches hung what looked like papaya-sized pineapples. 

         Don Juan pulled one of the fruit down and explained, “These are Noni Fruit.”  He held the object up and continued, “The scientists, they are experimenting.  They say this fruit will help stop cancers.”  The group went silent, and became focused.  One of the fathers that was along had lost a daughter to a brain tumor, the year before.  Don Juan did not have specific information, but everyone in the groups listened intently to every syllable. 

         “Try it?” Don Juan questioned.  After the earlier taste test, there were very few volunteers from the crowd.  I stepped forward, as did one other father.  Don Juan held the fruit toward me, “Go on.  Push your finger through.  The flesh, she is soft.”  He was right.  The skin of the fruit gave way easily.  I dug my finger in and pulled out some of the cool pasty flesh.  I placed the teaspoon-sized glob on my tongue and restrained the urge to gag. 

         “Mmmm!” I said, nodding to the father next to me.  Most of the kids started to move forward until the gurgling sound of a barely controlled vomit geyser was heard from the father by my side.  Thankfully, the rumbling sounds eventually faded without the actual appearance of vomit.  I don’t think Margo’s dad, Brian, is going to trust me ever again. 

         I still have trouble describing the taste, to this day.  A blend of soured milk, rotted crab entrails, egg salad sandwiches and the scent of sixth grade boys after the last recess on a hot, late, spring afternoon.  There was something else too, but I couldn’t identify it.  The really amazing thing was, not only did the taste not fade away; it seemed to intensify, with time.  I eventually started chewing up raw black pepper berries, straight from the plant.  It was a slight improvement.

         “Hey, Evan,” I called.  “Come here.”

         “Ya, what for?”

         “Smell my breath,” I said, and breathed into his face.  “Hmmm…I guess the pepper didn’t help, huh?” I said to another parent as we watched Evan flop around on the ground, clawing at his face. 

         “No, I guess not.  What are you going to do if the smell never goes away?”

         “I guess I’ll have one more tool in my kit for dealing with misbehaving students in my class next year, won’t I?”

         “I guess you will.”

         Next, we all gathered in an enormous tin roofed carport.  The kids used a press to squeeze sugar cane, and everyone took a taste.  It was all right, I guess.  The sugar addicted kids, who had been going through withdrawal symptoms for the five days we had been in Costa Rica, lapped it up like it was the nectar of the gods.
         “Other than kids with cuts on their hands playing with poison dart frogs, not much else happened between the sugar cane shed and Don Juan’s outdoor kitchen.  I don’t think there is an anti-toxin, but we did a lot of crossing our fingers for the next half hour.  Don Juan said we’d know by then if we need the medical examiner to drop by. 

         The kitchen was a delight.  It was a huge open-air cabana built out over a ravine.  The kids, and most of the parents spent some time making the tortillas for our dinner.  Then as we were finishing that up, Don Juan exclaimed, “You parents!  I think you made the kids do all the work today.  Now you have to help get the firewood.”  First of all, eating that noni fruit was work, and who needs a fire?  We were in the warm tropics, for crying out loud.  The cows do all the cooking.  Remember?  I kept my mouth shut though, because I was sure that little Costa Rican leprechaun was up to something interesting.

         We all dutifully followed Don Juan back out to the sugar cane shed.  “See all of this firewood?” he said pointing to stacks along each side.  “Do you know what kind of wood this is?”  Don Juan began to recite the different types of wood that were stacked around us.  “Do you know what burns the hottest, in this shed?  Do you Señor?” he said pointing at me.

         “Uhh…, no.”

         “This burns hottest,” he said holding up a sugar cane stalk, one of the stalks the kids had squeezed the juice out of earlier.  “But not like this, like this!” he said and produced from behind the stacks of wood what had once been a two gallon apple juice bottle.  It now contained a mysterious clear liquid.  Several parents nodded knowingly, me being one of them.  Next, a tray of shot glasses was produced.  Don Juan filled the glasses and walked around the circle of parents.          

         “Sure,” I said when a glass was offered to me.  “One shouldn’t hurt.”           Of the twelve of us, one mom didn’t drink, because she is allergic to alcohol.  Everyone else tried the Costa Rican moonshine.  Two of the dads said, “I don’t drink, but I’ll give it a “shot.””  One of those two dads, left with an extra quart jar of the “firewood,” that night.  Don Juan was right.  It was hot.  I think my stomach lining is still on fire.

         Shortly after this, a happy group of parents (some happier than others) returned to have a lovely dinner.  In our absence, only one child was cut chopping dinner ingredients.  Happily, there was no need for professional medical treatment.  The small strip of duct tape that I keep handy in my backpack did the trick. 

         The evening with Don Juan wound down quickly after dinner.  The parents stumbled back aboard the bus and made the short trip back to the hotel, in Fortuna, where we were staying.  A quart jar full of some mysterious clear liquid made a final quick trip through the over 21 crowd, and then 12 very happy and sleepy parents led their children back to 12 tile floored rooms for a well deserved night’s rest.