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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.