Firemaking

With my obsession to Runescape lately and that 3/4 of the recent posts I have written had some relation to Runescape or even the game's name mentioned in it, you may be thinking that this post has to do with the Runescape skill firemaking, but you are wrong. I'm speaking about the real life skill of firemaking. The memory that sticks out in my mind the most of going to my hunting cabin in the summer last year with my father for a few days is sitting around the open fire roasting marshmellows and cooking plump hotdogs in the darkness while crickets chriped and classic rock music came from the intercom/radio of the cabin. This stay was, I believe, the first time I ever started a successful fire, making it last for a while. While my father was washing his truck with a friend who popped up and stayed with us for a night, he'd have me go and make a fire in a little circular hole in the ground fenced in by cemet blocks underneath some, I believe, apple trees. I did get burnt once or twice lighting a match so that I could then light the paper towel and twigs on fire, but they were only minor burns and I actually enjoyed the pain of getting burnt. Please, do not ask. I think we actually had to use an open fire to cook our food because there was no gas for the grill, and it was not our responsible to go and get some but during a work party some other cabin members should've received another tank. Actually now that I remember, there was a tank in the closet that my father's friend notified him about, but we still stuck to cooking on the fire. Did you ever have a baked potato and steak cooked on an open fire? Well, it's better than on a grill, in my opinion. I also enjoyed burning lemonade and soda cans after I drank and shot holes into them with my .22 rifle (going Splinter Cell style on some cans) and then using the fire stick (which is used to poke the wood in the fire to get the fire going again if it's dying down, but I eventually burnt the fire stick) to morph the hot alumioum cans into weird shapes, stuck the stick into the can, and took it down to the pond and cooled it off. I think I have one of those lying around here somewhere...

Point being: back in the summer at the cabin, the 'fireplace' was my domain, my teritory, my place to be and live and running around the fireplace moving my chair everytime the wind changed its course and blew smoke and ash into my face. And now, I can enjoy this in my own backyard.

How?

Firemaking is illegal in Jermyn, sadly enough. They passed this law when I was young. We used to have these big (I can never think of a word when I need to write it) cans that looked like oil cans in the backyards where you would burn your garbage or wood or stuff that you wouldn't have to throw away; for example, if there's sticks lying around your yard you could pick them up, place them in the burner (that's what they're called -- I just remembered), and then light a fire and watch as they burn. But I guess it was a risk having these in a town, with houses right next to each other and the risk of a huge fire being extremely high. So if firemaking is illegal in Jermyn, how can I enjoy the real life skill in my own backyard?

Open fires are illegal in Jermyn, but if there's a screen on a fireplace outside, then it's okay. And yesterday while my father and I were out getting flowers and vegetables for the garden, we were looking at the fireplaces (something my father was eyeing up since he saw one at Dick's in the early winter last year) at Home Depot, popped down to Lowes (for their low prices, of course), and bought a round fireplace with a little chimney stack. When my father comes home from work, we're going to plant the garden (by the way I bought some jaulpeno [I know, not the correct spelling] pepper plants at the Home Depot), open the pool, and put the fireplace together. Now maybe I can take a break from Runescape and go outside more this summer and enjoy the outdoors near a screened-in fireplace in my hometown of Jermyn.

But I must proclaim that I believe that my pre chemistry teacher was breaking the laws of Jermyn one day. Craig and I were doing something in the alleyway, either playing catch with a football or trying to break a bouncy ball into pieces, or maybe riding our bikes, when he noticed smoke and what appeared to be some flames coming up from underneath a wooden deck by the teacher's swimming pool. Under farther inspection, the fire did not seem to be screened-in and was most likely an open fire. Now if I didn't like my pre chem teacher, I could've raced over to the borough building, got a cop, and brought him over (and with my luck the fire would've been out or it was screened-in and I received a fine), but my teacher is semi-nice to me, so I let her go.

I took some pictures and made a small three-minute clip at a friend's house, Carol, while Craig, Darrin, and Kyle were there, including myself of course, playing a game where you have rackets, a net, and a birdie. Not a ball or otherwise that would be tennis. I know the name of the game but I cannot spell it. It starts with a "b". If somebody would comment here and tell me the correct spelling, I would bow down to you. Well anyway, once I upload those to Imageshack and the video to YouTube (I believe they gave me permission) I'll post them here. Also I found a new picture-taking mode on my camera that I always needed, close-up mode! Oh, God was I excited when I discovered that. I took some nice pictures, plus you could even read writing on paper, for example -- my homework, with this mode. Maybe I'll have a new daily feature on here showing two to four pictures of notes and homework I did that day. Why? Maybe for the adults out there who're in their early 50's and want to see what school is like nowadays. Now if there's anybody in their early 50's reading this right now, I would have to bow down to them. Wow, I bow down to a lot of people...

Now I must leave you, but nevertheless let the force be with you. That was sad.