Burning Stuff Out Back

We did a lot of burning to get rid of refuse. When dad was clearing the back of the lot of pine trees, we burned a lot of branches. I will never forget the smell of burning pine. All of us kids played around the burn pile and occasionally we stepped on a live coal and got a blister.

I guess that was an advantage of living in a relatively rural area with no one behind us. Once I had a paper route, the burning became routine. I always got 4-7 copies of the newspaper as extras in case I had a call for an extra or one got chewed up by a dog or whatever.

These ~10 papers per day accumulated and had to be disposed.

Dad had a 55 gallon drum with a pie-shaped piece missing from the top. He had gotten it to run his 5 hp Sea King outboard motor in but it got new duty as the burn barrel.

I am sure I burned newspapers at least once a month.

At one point, it was probably in the autumn with lots of dead leaves around, Wayne Thomas set a fire that spread into the woods behind our houses. The fire department showed up in a firefighting Jeep and put it out.