Just a little fire
Sunday afternoons. Books. Naps. Dogs. Kids. And a little fire.
I recall a few fires…
A little boy walking with his dad from a deer blind. Cold. Bad cold. He stopped and built a little fire beside the trail. One of my best memories.
A Boy Scout campout deep in the piney woods. We were getting ready to hunt squirrels. It was fall. That’s what boys did in the fall. And it was raining pretty steady. Everything was wet. There was a fire to gather around. Had a lean too. The tales told of .22 shots on squirrels would have made one think we were some shakes of a bunch of marksmen. Tales told.
We had a desert mule deer lease out Fort Stockton way when we were in high school. Left school just before lunch. Might have stopped in Stephenville for lunch. Might not have. Took turns reading a Louis L’Amour out loud. Got to the ranch and some men had a good roaring fire. We sat around it and made plans for the next day. Big deer. Bigger country. Where boys could become men. A reminder that school can get in the way of an education.
It doesn’t take much to center a man.
