The great marshmallow

war of '71 started innocently enough with six boys camping out in their

back yard. Growing up I was torn between two time-honored professions,

becoming a fireman or astronaut. But being a boy from the south with three

brothers I seemed to have more interaction with firefighters than astronauts.

My first encounter

with the local fire department was the great marshmallow war of '71. It

was around this time that Brad, the boy next door, set the back yard on

fire. He did not do it intentionally; we were roasting marshmallows and,

well, things got a little out of control. My three brothers (John, Mike

and Richard) and I, along with Brad and Thomas, were camping out in Brad's

back yard. Brad and Thomas were our neighbors on either side.

We had planned

this outing for two weeks. Gathering all of the essentials two tents,

sleeping bags, flashlights, and with three large mason jars for catching

lighting bugs we set out for Brad's back yard. And of course we took one

large pack of marshmallows to roast. Not the small kind, no sir the jumbo

ones.

Everyone knows

that jumbo marshmallows were made just so little boys could roast them

over an open fire on the end of a stick (by the end of the summer Brad's

back yard was full of gooey marshmallow sticks). Once placed on the end

of a stick you had to be careful not to get the marshmallow too close

to the fire or it would turn into a flaming ball of white lava. This is

where we started to get into trouble.

After roasting

and eating a few marshmallows Brad got one too close to the fire. You

guessed it; Brad now had a flaming ball of white lava on the end of his

stick where his jumbo marshmallow used to be. Don't ask me why, but at

this moment he thought it would be a good idea to fling his flaming marshmallow

at me. Hence the great Marshmallow War of '71 started.

Soon there

were flaming balls of white lava flying all over Brad's back yard. Gooey

marshmallow was everywhere and on everything. Marshmallows were on our

clothes; our hair and I even found one inside my sleeping bag. I think

good old brother John had something to do with that one.

During the

heat of the great Marshmallow War one of the flaming balls of white lava

was flung and forgotten about. That was how the woods fire started. Brad

later told us how it had really started. He was sneaking around the tire

swing to ambush us when he ran into a spider web. It was not a normal

web; Brad had run into one of those webs that wrap around your entire

head. When it did a multi-legged creature crawled up his face starting

at his chin, up past his forehead ending somewhere down the back of his

neck.

Brad then did

what would forever be known as the spider dance. With hands wiping his

face and legs moving up and down in a jerking motion, Brad danced through

the woods yelling and screaming while forgetting all about the flaming

marshmallow that had fallen to the ground. Our parents called the fire

department; the firemen came with their trucks, hoses, fire axes and rakes

to put the fire out. When asked how the fire started we did what any boys

would do; we blamed the fire on someone else. The firefighters would never

believe that a Jumbo Marshmallow started the fire. At age 11 my career

path was set; watching them fight that fire I knew that one day I, too,

would be a firefighter.

During the

next ten years my career path would change several times. When I was 12,

Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and I knew one day I, too, would be

an astronaut and go to outer space (somewhere in a scrapbook I still have

all of the newspaper clippings from the Apollo missions to the moon).

My junior year

in high school my path changed again when Thomas got hurt. It was the

last play of the half when Thomas went up to intercept a pass and came

down hitting the ground hard. Coach called the Fire Department when he

did not get up. Firefighters came and placed Thomas on a backboard, placed

a "C" collar around his neck and a call went out for the helicopter.

This was the first time any of us had seen a helicopter land on a football

field.

Out came two

firefighters and a flight nurse. They started an IV, put Thomas in the

back of the helicopter and flew him to a downtown hospital. As it turned

out Thomas was okay and was playing in the next game, but once again my

career path changed. I was going to be like one of those firefighters.

My second year

of college a rocket ship went into space and glided