"Let's go sit by the fire."
Pick any fire. Any friend. Any place. I'm sure you can think of quite a few fires you'd like to sit by again this minute, reliving a special day that time will never tarnish. Some of the companions may be gone, but shared fires are still remembered as being as bright and warm as friendship.
There are merry fires and fires that invite contemplation. But they all draw men together as does no other shared experience in all the out-of-doors.
I guess that for me at least, the huge roaring blazers we built along the shore when fishing through the ice were as happy as any. A big chunk of hardwood formed a backlog and in front was just about anything that would burn--except stuff that was pitchy, because someone was always cooking something just about all day long. There were carefully constructed brush "clotheslines" that could dry a succession of wet mittens, and now and then socks, when we disobeyed our elders and went fooling around the thin ice at the edge of the lake or the spring runs in spite of being told not to.
Another unforgettable fire is the first one you ever built all alone. Mine was on a huge flat rock in the middle of a stream that I'd tempted once too often when fishing for spring suckers and perch. That was the day I sort of had to smile to myself about all the kidding I'd gotten about always carrying my little waterproof match safe--but if you stopped me in the woods tomorrow, or made me rummage down deep in my tackle box, I'd be willing to bet I could come up with dry matches.
I like the small work that goes with a fire and using the old tools that go with it. The careful splitting of thin slivers of kindling, the quartering of logs for next-size-up wood, and working with a hammer and wedges to split reluctant trunks. I guess we all pride ourselves on our prowess at cutting wood and fire building--but I remember too clearly the few times I failed.
One of these failures was back up in the high country elk camp, and the enemy was a sheetmetal sheepherder's stove. Tucked away in the corner of a tent, it just sat there and mocked me. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the thing to burn for more than 15 minutes at a time.
We sliced kindling so delicate you could have knitted with it, then ever so carefully added inch-square pieces of aspen, and everything would seem to be fine until we left the tent for supper. When we came back, it would all be burned out or just sitting there cold. Even in the few minutes that it seemed to cooperate, it threw out as much smoke as it did heat, so we opted to freeze rather than smother and spent most of our time in the big kitchen tent exchanging lies with the outfitter and getting in the way of the cook.
I like the little five-minute fires an Indian guide used to make when we decided to quit fishing for a while and have tea. Just a couple of stones, a handful of match-size twigs and by the time I'd dipped the kettle in the lake for water, we'd have a little handwarmer going; in the time it took to make a couple of casts from the shoreline, we'd have tea.
Tea just doesn't taste the same anywhere else either. Maybe it's the pine-tinted water and the battered tin cup and the quiet--or maybe it's the magic of sharing this blessing with a man with the unlikely name of White Duck--but it's somehow different and less inspiring anywhere else.
I like sitting over a little pail of glowing charcoal in a duckblind; I know it comforts the eye a lot more than it takes the chill from the bones, but it's a pleasant thing to thaw a trigger finer now and then and be able to disguise a hurriedly made-at-three-a.m. sandwich with a little toasting.
Fire has always been sacred to man; one of the oldest and greatest symbols of his superiority over the beasts. We burned fires at the mouths of our caves for protection from wolves and saber-toothed tigers. All literature is filled with the stories of how one of the gods of a particular people gave them the gift of fire.
Ancient firekeepers were specially selected and often ranked high in the religious echelons of both pagan and civilized times. It's a feeling that comes from the depths of our early memories when we were more beasts than men ourselves--a feeling of community, perhaps it is, that gives Liberty a lighted torch and kindles that special feeling we all know all too well when we see the little fires at places like Arlington, that pay perpetual honor to our heroes of the past.
A fire is a symbol of being home--wherever that fire is. A fire is a place where we are welcome and find comfort among our kind.
I can still smell the spicy, pungent acacia-wood smoke from an African campfire. Coming home at night we could see the blaze up on the hillside from miles away in the dark, and we knew that our friends would be there waiting to talk about the day past and the day to come. We'd sit around and stare into the flames one minute and up at the stars that make up the Southern Cross the next.
From somewhere, the night carried the voices of hyenas and every so often the bass of a lion or the ascending shrill of a petulant elephant. And then we would all, subconsciously and very discreetly, draw the chairs up a little bit closer to the fire.
After supper, we'd come back and sometimes talk a little and sometimes not. And then to bed. I would lie there and watch the orange glow outside through the canvas tent and listen with an ancient ear to these night things and wonder that such a pretty, sweet-smelling thing as fire really stood between me and that basso profundo coming closer in the night from somewhere on Kilimanjaro.
Our fires warm our spirits as much as our bodies. They dry our cares as well as our wet britches and carry our dreams in the flames.
I know of no more welcome phrase, no better way of saying, "Let's share what we have of life right now," than when a friend says to me, "Let's go sit by the fire."
This story originally appeared in Mostly Tailfeathers by Gene Hill.
Copyright (c) 1971-74 Gene Hll. All rights reserved.