Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends, Foes and Family,

I will likely be taking down the picture site with the Plogger software and start using Coppermine, which has better spam protection, in fact I have already done it and the new URL for the photo gallery is http://herbthiel.com/coppermine/

 Last weekend was our church’s annual Father and Son Campout and it was really great.  Ben brought Trent and three of the younger boys from the church whose fathers either couldn’t or wouldn’t bring them.  You don’t have to be a member of our church to come along and nobody gets all preachy at people, but the one man is a hardworking man and also very, exceptionally shy.  I don’t know what the other one’s problem was.  Perhaps he’s afraid that, even though no one would preach to him or get after him to get back into church, his own conscience might.

 Anyway, it is always a lot of fun and this year was even greater because Ben and Trent and these few of my Sunday School friends were there.  I have been teaching so long that many of the dads are people I have known and liked since they were in my class themselves.  It’s a fine time had by all, with Ben’s home-made foam swords and boys and young men testing their skill and strength, the camaraderie of a group of men and the beauty of the Pike National Forest.  It’s this beauty I want to talk about and where the stupidity comes in.

There has been little or no rain in The Pikes Peak Region in the last couple of months.  The area is dry.  The scientists at the National Forest Service have ways of measuring how dry it really is.  They can tell you how much moisture there is in the potential fuels all around the area and determine how high the danger of a forest fire starting is.  They are not a bunch of rascals waiting for the time when someone wants to go camping and then decide to take all their fun away, they are trying to prevent the loss of life and property.  You all remember Smokey the Bear, right?  The Forest Service operates a website for him that shows in real time the number of acres burning up right now.  http://www.smokeybear.com/wildfires.asp

You know I try not to make my entries rely too much on Youtube videos, but every once in a while there is one that comes along that seems to punctuate, sometimes with an exclamation point, what I am trying to say.

 (This video clip on Youtube is also available on Smokey’s homepage http://www.smokeybear.com without the comments.)

So, what got me on this tangent?  Stupid people.  Stupid, ignorant, idiotic morons who don’t know anything about how fire works or what you are supposed to do when you leave a campsite, e.g., pick up your trash, including the dog food you put on the ground for your dog.  On that little side note I want to know why in the world you would bring your dog or dogs on a camping trip with you (bad idea in my opinion) but not bring a bowl to put their food in?  Oops, wait, I forgot.  You’re an idiot!  Now, while people are camping, if you drop something on the ground it is still considered edible and depending on what it is you dropped the five second to thirty minute rule may apply, but you don’t actually eat off the ground.  Or did you do that on purpose because you didn’t like our group or the fact that we had kids with us, so you thought you could leave some skunk/coon/bear bait to spoil our time.  Is that why you left your trash, including some melted frozen sugar-water pops?  Oh wait, I forgot again, you’re stupid and need someone to grab you by the shirt and shake you up real good, maybe banging your head against some trees in the process.

The people who were camped next to our spot decided, for whatever reasons they had, to take their big dog and pack up and leave.  I don’t know why.  Our kids weren’t awful, although, being kids, and boy-kids at that, they did get up early and do boy-things, like see who could cross the creek on a narrow log, search for fish and have other adventures and so, if perhaps the folks next door were hung-over, which might explain but not excuse their knuckleheadedness, I guess they might have been bothered, but I think I’m a pretty good judge of how boys behave and they were actually very polite and tried to be thoughtful.  So, for whatever reason, they pulled out, leaving their trash and skunk-bait and a fire ring with a few of those frozen sugar water pop things tossed in.

Giving them a big benefit of the doubt, I think they were just stupid.  High gusts of wind and dry conditions like we have had are a bad mix with stupidity.  They pulled out and we were sitting around our little propane stove with our coffee when we looked over and saw what I first thought was a bunch of ash blowing out of their fire pit.   It only took a couple of minutes to realize that while the ashes were being blown away, there was smoke blowing from it as well.  The high winds had blown the ashes off some still-warm coals.  We all ran over there with gallon jugs for water and sure enough, the coals were red hot and as the wind blew you could see the coals getting hotter and hotter and the contents of the plastic packages of the frozen pops was bubbling inside.  Some bigger pieces of wood that were in the pit started to heat up and have red coals on the bottom of them as well.

Fortunately we were by a small creek and had fast access to water.  I poured several gallons of water on it and stirred it into mud while Brother F. took the now-glowing logs out of the pit and tossed them into the creek.  It did create a teachable moment, though, since we were able to show some of the boys why there are fire bans and how easy it would be to start an uncontrollable fire.  I showed them how to stir it, put it out, and make sure it was out.  Here is a link to a ranger showing how the process is done, but remember, he’s not a movie star or actor, he’s a guy doing his job.  http://youtu.be/tqqGjD_TqhA

I had looked around for one that I remember from being a boy in the 60’s where Smokey or someone walks you through the process of putting out a campfire but I couldn’t find it.  I did find a link to Rod Serling doing a commercial about it, though: http://youtu.be/QykWmqrLcPI

And this one from the Seventies is really quite clever, with the father at the end saying, “Ah, just leave it.  It’ll go out on its own.” http://youtu.be/hSSRhsdOuNs

Anyway, it is really true, YOU can make a difference in the number of acres we lose to wildfires each year.  It’s not a conservative/liberal/libertarian cause, either, but rather a matter of common sense.

Till next time,

Herb (Flamin’ Mad) Thiel