The Lessons Life Teaches, A Collection of Short Stories.

The Carport

I honestly appreciate the people who read my stories. But one of the main reasons I write them is to escape for a short time to revisit past memories. These precious memories and thoughts come alive while I am writing them. I just wish I could write better so I could express not only the moment but also the sometimes-vivid emotions that goes with them. One of the great joys of Facebook, is when somebody shares their story or comment back.

One of these times occurred recently when a treasured friend of our family, Mark, shared a photograph of the home I grew up in Phoenix. Looking at the picture brought back a memory of one of the scariest moments in my entire life.

The date on the picture is January 1958. I was four years old. My bedroom was the window at the left of the picture. The tree by the sidewalk was a willow tree. It is where a cat that adopted us, whom we named Gray Kitty, used to hang out. Then about eight years later, on the carport to the right, is where one of my worst nightmares took place.

On the day before, Saturday, I had watched on television one of the coolest movies for a kid ever – "King Solomon's Mine". It was a 1950's movie about a group of people who traveled across the wilds of Africa searching for a friend. Near the end of the movie, they ended up exploring King Solomon's Mine. It was a tunnel dug deep into the mountain. To see in the mine, they lit these hand-held wooden torches. The flame flickered about a foot high and seemed to light up the entire tunnel. Being young and raised in the city, I don't recall that I had ever used a torch before.

The next day, after church, my parents went for a Sunday drive. Sometimes I would go with them and sometimes not. I am not sure why I didn't go this time. My brother had gone into the service so this left me home alone. Later in the afternoon, my neighbor, Chris, who was a year older than I was, came over to see if I wanted to play. We went outside and played soldier for a while and then ended up on the carport. There we saw some cattails that my mom had collected on some adventure. Immediately, the torch in yesterday's movie came to mind. I ran in the house and got a box of matches and came back and tried to light one but it just didn't want to burn. I forgot who thought of it, but the suggestion came to soak the cattail heads in the gasoline can that we used to fuel the lawnmower. So, we put two of them, one each, in the gas on the carport and let them soak for a while. Yes, you guessed it, I pulled them out of the gas and lit them with the match. Holy Crap! I can still see the flame that shot up clear to the ceiling. I ran out of the carport with the torches and the horrendous flame from memory, exaggerated or not, went up 20 feet in the air. I threw them on the ground and thankfully they went out after a while. We went back to check out the carport and there was a black scorch mark on the ceiling where the flame had hit it. It was a miracle that I hadn't burned down the entire house.

When my parents got home, my friend had gone home by then, of course, and I knew I wouldn't be able not to tell them because of the black scorch mark. I can't remember any horrific punishment and considering I am still alive they must have understood – at least a little. I have a feeling that I wasn't left alone for a while.

Anyway, thanks Mark for sending the picture, even now as I am finishing up writing this the palms of my hands are sweating. Thanks for jogging out a memory that I hadn't thought of for many years.