Page 14 - Jeffersonville Journal Visitors Guide

and an old rubber boot with a hole in the toe. Meager gear when faced with the accelerating blaze. Black smoke billowed skyward, mixed with a swirling vortex of glowing sparks. Wood crackled as the firestorm raged up like a freed dragon. The intense heat forced us back, and suddenly it was obvious that our buckets were no match. Finally, with one last agonizing death cry, the old outhouse slumped over and collapsed onto the dry grass in a brilliant explo-
saw more motivated boys. We worked until it was dark.
That night we all slept in the same bedroom. Just, because. I hardly slept at all, the chief’s business card staring at me from the night stand. I finally got up and threw it into a sock drawer. It rained really hard and there was thunder and lightning.
Somebody up there was mad.
In the morning, I was surprised how nice the back lawn
looked. It was already turning green. We did a little more raking, mowed the lawn and planted a little tree where the outhouse had been. You couldn’t tell anything had ever happened.
Yes, I did say dry grass.
sion of splintering timbers.
That afternoon when my dad pulled up in the Country Squire he was amazed how great the placed looked, impressed that his hard working boys had the good sense to disassemble that ugly old outhouse.
Like a contagious virus, the fire now spread out across the field in all directions, igniting and re-igniting no matter how much we stomped and tromped. This being the ‘60s, my older brother’s bell-bottomed jeans were an easy target for the leaping flames. He jumped and howled and dropped and rolled.
At one point, Dad smelled smoke and reminded us that it’s okay to have a camp- fire but always be careful. We all agreed with that.
We managed to extinguish his flaming pants with a bootful of spring water. Now he had one bell-bottom and one capri leg. But there was no time to laugh. The devil flames were creeping across the lawn directly toward the farmhouse. Right about then, a sobering sound filled the valley. It was both wrenching and welcome. The town fire whistle.
I was going to give him Chief
Tuliebitz’s card, but Dad was tired from a long work week and pretty soon we were all relaxing on the front porch in the rocking chairs, swigging chilled Cokes.
Turned out Old Lady Shoomaker called it in. From her kitchen window, all the way on the other side of the valley, it looked as though our front porch was burning. That’s what she said anyway, the old busy biddy. We could have gotten it out on our own. If we had the chance.
“Well,” Dad said, “the place is looking really good. And to think, some people said I was crazy to leave you boys up here on your own.” Dad held his coke up in salute.
But three towns showed up. Four tankers and three hook- and-ladder trucks. Lights flashing and sirens blasting, it was quite a show of force. I have to say those volunteers launched an assault like well-trained Marines. They fanned out across the hillside with fire rakes and showering hoses. They refilled the trucks from Anawanda Lake. In twenty minutes the raging fire was completely doused and the old outhouse reduced to a heap of steaming charcoal.
“Here’s to independence.”
We four brothers stood there dazed and speechless. All of us sweaty and sooty, my older brother in soaking wet, half burned bell-bottoms, my youngest brother holding a leaky boot. When the smoke finally cleared and the hoses were shut off, Chief Tuliebitz stepped forward.
We all clinked bottles. The sun was setting and we could hear whip-poor-wills in the valley. I’d maybe think about giving Dad that card some other time.
“So,” he eyeballed us. “Where are your parents?”
My older brother explained that our dad was at work. I backed him up.
“Yeah, at work.”
We did a pretty good job of explaining how it was an acci- dent and we were just trying to smoke out some bees. Chief Tuliebitz seemed to buy it. Seemed to. He reached into the cab of his truck and handed me his card. It was the very first time anyone ever gave me their card. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. It looked all official and serious. Had a gold fireman’s helmet embossed on it.
“You have your dad contact me.”
I could see his Adam’s apple, so I knew he meant business. The trucks finally got all packed up and drove away. We
brothers got right to work. We raked up all the burned area and filled in the poop hole with charcoal, rocks and dirt. You never
12 Jeffersonville Journal • 2016-2017