and so, he did. I’m not sure who he was that let the fire fall, not like he had much of a choice in the matter. And he couldn’t let the fire do anything but burn. He couldn’t let the fire fall. He had to make the fire fall by artfully coaxing beyond a cliff’s edge the remaining embers from a scrap wood fire he’d lit two hours earlier after a day’s gathering and stacking.
Mom, Dad my sister and I must have been nearing the halfway point of a most wonderful of family vacations, a vacation of all vacations. This was the quintessential vacation for any and all American families of that or most other eras.
I was seven years old, cold, tired and absolutely sure we were there to witness the world ending.
Our 1961 Chevrolet Impala allowed us, encouraged us, practically begged our family to see this USA. We did so, for three weeks in late spring or early summer of 1962. I think. And I’m pretty sure, even. But, hey, this is no publication of record, here. It’s only me reassembling childhood memories made fifty years earlier, almost.
Maybe because I had never seen such beauty, so much of it, so quickly, so non-stop as was the journey, that I thought our live’s near an end.
We left Houston with some nice old lady sitting in the back seat with us kids. She was a passenger until we got to somewhere in North Texas, or New Mexico, or Colorado or probably Salt Lake City where we hung out with Dad’s sister’s family.1 The blending of the nice old lady’s incontinence with ripening of discarded banana peels forever staked its claim upon the near pristine scape of my childhood, marking that memory with its heavy scent. Fortunately, that combination has remained mostly avoidable since, else that eternity and cramped space be revisited, revealing details seemingly only awakened under influence of a similar smell.2
At the campground headquarters we checked-in, took potty breaks, checked out shelves of knick-knacks and waited for Dad to show us where we would sleep that night. I went out to check on him and discovered him leaning up against a tree barfing up most of what he’d eaten that day. Daddy’s sick, son, he told me. I yelled while running through the store as fast as I could, “Mommy! Daddy’s throwing up outside by a tree!”
Within thirty minutes the car parked near our tent, a military-looking thing cinched smartly atop a wooden platform, secured with center poles nicely sunk outside stakes. An electric lamp hung from a line between the two poles. Four cots with mattresses, each outfitted with complete bedding, were the only furniture. Daddy slept the rest of the afternoon while sister and me made friends with kids we hadn’t seen before or since. Access to such easy and life-long friends is one of an uncountable wonders of childhood.
All of this took place amidst a comfortable spirit of Americans about the business of vacating their jobs and responsibilities of the day. I couldn’t define what I was discerning at the time. These days I recognize similar shared experiences as patriotism, celebration of national pride. More than that, I recall a sense that all the grownups were there out of a sense of duty near to the point of obligation. Baby boomers were on the cusp of coming of age. Our young parents were a part of the collect simmering in the quiet rage that was the cold war. America was great, no two ways about it! We had jobs that were so good we could leave them for weeks while we took our families on tours of this great land as if to prove to them, ourselves and any and all victims of our slideshows upon our return, that our huge heaps of Detroit-spawned metal can haul all of us and our Tupperware from sea to shining sea.
For all I knew, all inhabitants of our planet were present that evening. Just because I didn’t recognize anyone but my parents and my sister didn’t mean I didn’t know them already. That was certainly the case as far as all the other kids my age were concerned. We played together as though we had always been friends and would always be friends, without prejudices or notions of class, family situations or social standing, parting after the games were over without a thought of never seeing each other again.
Food was everywhere, so much like a church picnic that paper plates dripped with baked beans, potato salad and all conceivable barbecued meats. We took turns glancing into the darkness away from the campgrounds. We took turns compulsively following the sight lines of each others gazes as if not know already what the other was trying to spot. The fire atop the three-thousand-foot cliff became more visible against the darkening backdrop of sunset. And before the darkness, the fire raged most brightly as though announcing its arrival and triumph over day, then relaxed into a lively glow.
I haven’t known a more palpable sense of anticipation than from that evening. The thing is, I wasn’t sure what we were waiting for. “Pass me by, pass me by-eye-eye. If you don’t happen to like…” I remember hearing this song. A man sang this song, and a few others, as though he were the one who made them famous. Everyone clapped. Oh, this was part of the entertainment. He wasn’t performing just to be performing. Another gentleman asked him to take a bow while everyone continued clapping. A few announcements later all was silent. One minute everyone was clapping and cheering and facing toward the camping lodge. The next minute everyone was silent and facing the opposite direction. A glowing pinhole against the blackness had everyone’s attention. Should I cry or not? I watched other children for clues.
“Let the fire fall!”
A man’s voice boomed from the lodge deck.
“Let the fire fall!”
Another man shouted in the distance toward the glow. And then another less audible, and another shout that sounded like a strained whisper. There may have been another one, completely unheard but even louder because of our imaginations. This command line repeated twice.
A minor eternity passed before the glow came to life. Colorful embers dripped over an edge. We beheld this three-thousand-foot incision, a thin, distant suture into nature’s perfect darkness. The gentleman singer piped up again enhancing our enchantment. We returned to our tent. Something had been stolen. I don’t remember what. My father discovered somebody using it the next morning, whatever it was, and handled the situation.
We wouldn’t return to our wooden-frame, gravel-roofed house in Houston for another week and a half. Waiting for us when we got there was a pile of mail that contained an issue of Life magazine. I was not surprised or impressed by what I saw on the cover, figuring it a most natural occurrence, an exclamation mark, at most, at the end of an amazing three weeks.
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