Memory Bank

This is the beginning of a new blog series: totally random memories from my life. Maybe childhood, maybe adulthood, maybe focused around me or not. The idea is to preserve some memories that my kids can read and smile about someday! I will emphasize that there is no order to these, just random thoughts that pop into my head...

When I was in junior high, I had two friends over to my house. My parents were not home, and we were bored to tears. I lived out in the country and there was just not a lot to do out there. For some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to experiment with matches. In our back pasture was an old, very small building that at one time housed feed for our sheep. My brother and I had converted it to a clubhouse/fort since we had long ago rid ourselves of the sheep! My two friends and I found some old Cabbage Patch dolls in the clubhouse, and here began the experimentation with fire.

Now, this building did not have a door, but we had hung a towel in the doorway as somewhat of a curtain. Somehow, one of the Cabbage Patch Kids that we lit on fire came in contact with the towel. Then, the towel made contact with the grass of the pasture. My friends later joked with me that I yelled, "Cabbage! Fire!" We were in way over our heads, and I could already imagine the entire property engulfed in flames! Life went into slow motion and I was imagining the punishment that would come down if I caught the place on fire. One of us ripped the towel down, and we all put the fire out before things got out of hand. Whew!

Talk about an adrenaline rush! I think I was sick at my stomach for days although I would not have admitted that to my friends. I found reasons to not let anyone go down to the little clubhouse until the evidence of a fire was gone. You can imagine that it was not near as bad as I first thought and magnified in my adolescent mind! We just joked and laughed it away, but I was scared enough to learn my lesson about playing with fire!