I have always had a fascination with fire. This fascination certainly didn’t manifest itself in such activities as arson, but there are two incidents which spring to mind!

When I was 12 years old and in grade 8, I used to spend a lot of time by myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t have friends, but I have always been comfortable with my own company… something which many people are not. On one particular Saturday in the summer of 1966, I found myself outside our apartment building with nothing to do.

For some unknown reason – well, unknown because I can’t for the life of me remember how I got them – I had a book of matches in my pocket. I don’t know what possessed me, but I thought it’d be a great idea if I was to set fire to the garbage cans sitting by the side of the building. I was a relative newcomer to matches, so the first few I tried burned out before I could drop it into the garbage can. After a little practice though, it worked quite well. As I wrote in “Sounds Good – Part 3", I lit up the garbage cans which were kept at the side of the small apartment building where we lived. I think I had quite a good blaze going before the landlady called my mom, who promptly came downstairs to drag me away. Mom threatened to beat me within an inch of my life, but she spanked me once and then stopped. She said, “I think I’ve done myself an injury – wait until your father gets home." Well, mom was always saying things like that… “wait until your father gets home", but nothing ever came of it. So I guess that worked out well for me. The landlady turned on the water hose that was also at the side of the building and put out my fire. I must say, in retrospect, it was a damn fine fire!

Five years later, 1971, I was just about out of high school. My uncle Joe hired me for the summer to work for him – he was a painting contractor. I earned a whopping $1.25/hr that summer which, believe me, was the cat’s pyjamas! It was the most money I had ever seen in my life and I was happy for the job! I also really liked my uncle Joe. He had a dart board set up in the basement of his house and I always enjoyed throwing the darts whether or not my aim was accurate. In fact, one day a few years prior, I threw a dart and it accidentally hit the copper cold water pipe. I really was in a bit of a dilemma as I tried to decide the best course of action… leave it there and not tell anyone (I mean, it wasn’t leaking or anything since the point of the dart was acting like a bandage), or leave it there and tell someone! I did the honorable thing.

One of my uncle’s contracts that summer was to paint a high school in the east end of Toronto. He had about 15 men working for him in various parts of the school and my job was to make their job easier. One Friday, I had several rolls of masking tape and was masking off areas with sheets of paper that were not to be spray painted. After the area was painted, my job was to pull down the tape and paper and put the bits in a large garbage can. After that, I was to take some paint thinner and clean up any bits on the wall that were accidentally sprayed by my not covering the wall, or by the painter’s over eagerness! I have to say, these guys really enjoyed painting… or maybe they were just giving me stuff to do.

You know… after a while, exposure to paint thinner can make you feel just a little light headed! Believe me, it was a pleasant experience and, after a while, I was thoroughly enjoying my work! I enjoyed the paint thinner so much, that I must have gone slightly brain dead, because the next thing I knew, I had deliberately poured a capful of thinner on the hall floor and, matchbook in hand, lit a match and threw it into the little puddle. The resulting flare was really neat! It lasted about 2 seconds and then burned itself out. I did this two or three more times… each time delighting in the flare! The fourth or fifth time though, it didn’t work out too well. I had, unwittingly, backed myself right up next to the garbage can full of masking tape and paper and failed to notice (or, perhaps more precisely, didn’t much care) that the capful of paint thinner on the floor was directly next to the garbage can. Well, there was a great little flare, but then the paper in the can caught fire and I was pretty much helpless as the whole can burst into flame.

I yelled, “Fire!" and within moments, 3 or 4 guys came running with fire extinguishers and soundly doused the flames! I was relieved… I was very lucky it wasn’t worse than a torched garbage can and some black soot on the hallway floor. Well, my uncle wasn’t too pleased with me, but he let me think about the incident over the weekend while he decided on a course of action about which he’d tell me on Monday morning. He might tell my parents… he might not; I might still have a job… I might not. I certainly deserved to be fired!

Monday morning, I showed up for work as usual waiting to hear what my uncle was going to do. He had not called my parents – for which I was always grateful – and he had decided to keep me on. He said that two mistakes were as many as he would put up with, but as long as there weren’t any more, he had no problem with me working for him. I said, “Two mistakes?" and he responded, “Your mistake with the fire, and my mistake in not properly assessing the situation in which I placed you!" It was a good summer, all in all, and my uncle taught me a valuable lesson about integrity and responsibility. That lesson has served me well all the years since.

Nowadays, to appease my fire demons, I have a burn pile on our property. All spring and summer, I throw onto the pile the broken branches and fallen leaves that I find around the yard and just about anything else wooden that we’re going to throw out and, by October, it’s a good and high pile. I usually get a good fire going within a few minutes and it burns quite well for a couple of hours. I stay with the fire for several hours as it burns because that’s the responsible thing to do, and I also keep the water hose handy just in case! It’s a good compromise!