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Redneck entertainment in Moyie Springs |
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November 8, 2016 |
By Mike Ashby
“Hurry Up, it’s goin’ to burn good.” With those
words, I was once again invited to attending a
so-called innocent event.
Ray had piled up a huge amount of logging slash
that needed to be burned. He wanted me to come
over and enjoy an evening of ‘smores, hot dogs
and general merriment. In retrospect, I should
have known the term merriment would be higher on
the list than hot dogs and marshmallows.
Arriving over at Ray’s homestead on the rim, I
immediately noticed a rather large crowd had
already gathered. Being it was rather late in
the day, the weather was past cool. I thought it
was downright frosty. Since these noteworthy
folk had already taken on a certain amount of
anti-freeze, they were not overly concerned with
the cold.
Besides, I was assured Ray would soon have an
enormous blaze going to keep us "toasty as all
get out."
Prophetic words.
I watched as Ray began crawling up onto the top
of the pile wearing a wide grin. It was then I
noticed a large quantity of five gallon buckets
up on top of that pile of logging slash.
Knowing that in the past two weeks, Ray had
siphoned over 250 gallons of gas out of a diesel
fuel tank, I knew immediately what was in those
five gallon buckets. It dawned on me that this
would be a really good time to find a somewhat
more secluded spot to watch the rest of this
evenings shenanigans.
Ray proceeded to empty all five of those jugs
onto the pile, telling someone on the ground
that there was more diesel than gas in the
buckets. I knew that was a bit of untruth, as I
had put several of those jugs of “more diesel
than gas” into my pickups fuel tank and the
thing ran just fine.
I now had taken up residency behind a piece of
heavy equipment parked nearby and waited with
anticipation for the boom. I did not have to
wait long. To give Ray some smidgen of credit, I
noticed that he intended to start the blaze by
throwing a flare up onto the pile. With a mighty
heave, the lit flare left Ray's hand and made it
close to, but not onto, the pile of gas soaked
wood.
An errant limb deflected the flare back about 30
feet from the pile. I noticed that one of the
antifreeze soaked crowd was suddenly rushing
forward, with the cry, “I’ll get it.”
Again, to give Ray some more smidgen of credit,
I heard him say something to the effect, “No, I
have another flare, just wait.”
Just as the somewhat soused feller reached the
flare, the pile blew, literally.
I saw him fall back, and then a huge boom echoed
around us. The gas fumes lifted several feet of
pile straight up. My wife said our house rattled
from the explosion, and we live about a mile
away.
The explosion was followed by a huge mushroom
cloud that lifted away to the heavens. The
enterprising feller who had rushed forwarded was
stumbling around mumbling something like
“somebody should-a-warned me.”
It is worthy to note, again, that this feller
now was shy a bunch of eyebrows and maybe some
hair off the top.
I was still hiding behind the piece of heavy
equipment, and, I admit, kind of giggling a bit.
Sensing that the most prevalent danger was now
passed, I wandered out to the field of
destruction.
Finding the other folks all still standing, sort
of, we all had a good laugh out of the event.
That is until Ray’s beloved wife came forth from
her house.
I sensed something was not good with this nice
lady, and sure enough, it was quickly apparent
she was more than a touch distraught by the
evening’s shenanigans. I think the first
question I heard was, “What the blankly blank
were you thinking? That query was followed by
“What the blankly blank did you do, do you know
you scared the blankly blank out of me?"
Since I was rolling around laughing, I might
have mistaken the term blankly blank for another
more profound word or two.
To add insult to injury, the gas quickly burned
off that pile, leaving a greasy smoke to wind
into the sky.
Some effort was then made to get the pile
burning by using a weed burner. One feller held
the five gallon tank while another poked the
blazing nozzle down into the heart of the pile.
Sensing I had survive a relative minor
explosion, comparatively, I decided it was time
to make tracks for home. When I walked in the
front door, I was greeted with “What the blankly
blank were you doing, what was that blankly
blank explosion?”
Trying to explain the evening’s activities just
resulted in raised eyebrows and one final
comment. “You got to be kidding me.”
Going to a hot dog, smores and general innocent
merriment with a bunch of rednecks in North
Idaho can certainly provide a feller with an
evening of unforgettable memories. |
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