Survival Skills
LISTEN: (6 min, 31 sec)
THE GRANDCRITTERS GATHERED around the cabin’s firepit on an evening so hot the added temperature of a campfire would blow the top out of a thermometer. I wiped sweat out of my eyes. “So why aren’t we doing this when it’s cold?”
“That’s not yours, Telly.” The War Department plucked an edged weapon from the hands of the youngest grandchild with less fuss than flicking a piece of lint off his sticky, stained Ninja Turtles tee shirt. “So they can build fires this winter. They’re all old enough to learn how.”
“That one’s three.”
“Never too early to start learning survival skills.”
“The skill they’ll learn today will be how to survive the heat.” I felt the sting of the summer sun on the back of my neck. “Besides, someone’ll burn themselves.”
She gave me her ever-optomistic smile. “It’s part of learning about fire.”
At least the fire pit was in the shade. Knowing better than to argue with a woman who’d made up her mind, I waved them over. “All right you heathens, lets gather up some little sticks like this.” I held up a twig thinner than a toothpick.
Parker, the eight-year-old, ran away and came back with a thick piece of stove wood. He held it out with one hand. “How about this?”
I took it from him lest he drop it on someone’s Crocks and smush a toe. “Let’s put the log to the side until later. We have to start small. Someone fetch me some dried grass.”
He frowned. “What is this…fetch?”
Three-year-old Telly reached down and snatched up two handfuls of green grass and threw it onto the twigs I’d arranged in a tiny tent.
“Fast reactions, buddy.” I gave his chili-bowl haircut a little pat. “But it needs to be dry grass, like an old bird nest. In fact, if we had one of those, we’d just light it.”
“Give it a few minutes and that grass will be dried out in this heat,” said Riley. At ten going on eighteen, and a voracious reader, she’s developing the art of sarcasm.
I glanced up at the tree high above us. At age six, Caden’s a little monkey. “What are you doing way up there?”
“Getting you a bird nest.”
“The limbs it’s sitting on is smaller than these twigs. Get down from there!”
Caden has been here in another Life. The first time he picked up a water gun at age three, he approached me at high-ready and fired a stream of water into my chest with a perfect two-hand grip.
Riley studied the pile of tinder. “Why do we have to do it this way?”
“It’s how we learn to build fires.”
“Why don’t you just stack up some of that wood by the porch and squirt some of that stuff in the white bottle on it? That’s how you usually do it.”
“Well, that’s an old Indian trick my daddy taught me, but we’re going to learn with small fires today. I’d show y’all how to do it with a flint and steel, but one of y’all borrowed it and we’re back to matches.”
ADVERTISEMENT
After I’d sweated out a couple of buckets, they’d scraped up enough fuel to get started. I built a small mound of twigs and grasses. With those components, I sat aside a pile of progressively larger pieces of wood that would soon provide enough heat and coals to start the fire.
“So once you have this all gathered together, you make sure the wind won’t blow out your match and light it.”
I struck a match on the box and heard Caden beside me. “Happy Birthday!”
He blew it out.
“Uh, dude. We’re trying to make a fire here, not light birthday candles.”
Telly leaned close. “My turn.”
“Guys, we’re not here to blow out matches.”
Telly stuck an index finger in his mouth and spoke around it. “It’s. My. Turn.”
“Get your finger out of your mouth. You were handling worms a few minutes ago.”
“It tastes good.” He held out the wet digit. “Taste it.”
“Don’t want to.” I lit the twigs. “See how fast this little stuff burns? Now watch, it’ll get really hot and –––.”
The wet digit appeared in front of my eyes. “Taste it!”
“Offer it to your mother.”
The tiny flame caught and grew.
Parker picked up the small log he’d offered before. “Now?”
“You’ll put it out. We need some sticks the size of your fingers.”
Splaying his fingers as measuring instruments, he wandered off to find firewood, ignoring what I’d collected.
“Are we ready for these?” Nine-year old granddaughter Logan came out of the house with wire hangers and a bag of marshmallows.
“Not yet, and you probably need to get that bag back inside before they turn into marshmallow cream.”
“That’s what Nana uses to make that pie you like so much.”
“Take them in and bring me some Fritos. I’ll show you something.”
Caden tried to blow the fire out, but it was burning too good. “I want hot dogs.”
“You can’t cook them if you kill the fire.” I wiped away the sweat running down into my eyes and picked up a more substantial stick and added it to the growing flames. “Now all we have to do is keep adding bigger and bigger pieces of wood and it’ll be big enough for Caden’s hot dogs.”
Riley studied the fire for several minutes. “It’s too hot for this.” Looking like a petulant teenager, she headed into the house to enjoy the benefits of technology…air conditioning.
I looked at the War Department, who took the now-straightened hangers away from the boys who were using them as swords. She pointed at a clear space in the firepit, away from the existing blaze. “Show them how to start a fire with Fritos, and then Vaseline.”
“You realize we’re giving them the knowledge to burn the house down.”
“You knew early.”
“And we almost burned the house down, along with the hay barn, the chicken house, and once Cousin set the pasture on fire.”
Logan came back with a small bag of Fritos and dumped them onto the already-burning fire. “Now what?”
“Well, that’s not what I had in mind. There’s a way to light one at a time and use them to start fires, but…”
The fire sizzled and hissed as the grease-infused chips caught fire and burned harder.
Parker came around the corner with a small log and Telly ran up to him, extending his finger. “Taste this!”
They still had a long way to go, but I felt we were on the right track.
Fighting hyperthermia, I set the log aside and we sweated beside a roaring fire, content in the knowledge that we could build another one when the temperature finally cooperated.
Email Reavis Wortham at ContactUs@fishgame.com
