When playing with matches backfires
When I was 12 years old, living in De Queen, Ark., one of my best friends was a guy named Davy Conatser.
Davy and I were polar opposites. I was city. He was country. I was a wimpy weakling. He could throw haybales on a trailer all day long in the middle of August and not break a sweat. I was cautious and careful, wary of trying new things. He lived to try new things. I learned a lot from Davy, most of the time in implicit ways that saved me a lot of grief, while not necessarily saving him.
Case in point: One coolish, windy winter day Davy, me and my brother were fooling around down in the Rolling Fork River bottoms, killing time and smoking grapevines. (Don’t ask.) We were walking through an old-cut hayfield on our way back to Davy’s house when a friend of his happened by in a truck and asked us if we wanted a ride. We hopped on the lowered tailgate, and Davy’s friend took off.
It was then Davy decided to demonstrate one of his newly developed skills. He took out a match, and ignited it using just his thumb. My brother and I tried, but we were total failures. “Here,” Davy said, “You just flick your thumb up the stick to the head like this.” Flick. The match ignited. And Davy tossed it from the back of the truck.
Did I tell you it was a windy day? And that we were in a hayfield full of dead grass?
Within 10 seconds a flame the size of a garbage can shot up from the field. Within 30 seconds, it was the size of a school bus. And within a minute, the flames were 100 feet long and six feet high, driven on the easterly wind and headed for Broken Bow.
We started screaming and banging on the truck bed. Davy’s friend let us off, and we ripped off our shirts and started trying to beat the flames out. Davy’s friend took off to get help. Our efforts, though energetic, were pretty useless, trying to attack the flames from the front, breathing in smoke and getting singed.
Within five minutes, Davy’s uncle, aunt, and cousins showed up. They were carrying wet burlap bags and they looked serious. And it soon became apparent that this was not their first rodeo. They attacked the fire from the flanks, and worked toward the head. And slowly but surely, they beat the flames to death. Within minutes, the fire was out.
And I’m pretty sure, though I can’t confirm this, that before the sun went down that evening someone lit a fire in the seat of Davy’s pants.
Such is life. Sometimes we engage in what we consider to be harmless pursuits, and those pursuits end up making us look like idiots. I would like to tell you a foolproof way to keep this from happening, but, unfortunately, I don’t know any. A lot of life can only be navigated by what is called “trial and error.” It’s unavoidable. So try not to despair when you mess up.
Oh, and don’t play with matches.