Don't try this at home

The childhood stories I've related up to this point were all at the Elliott House. At some point around the time I started the first grade we moved into the Bauer House. It was here at the Bauer house where I experienced my first episode of “Death by Fire”. It ended up becoming a popular event and we continued this activity often during the summer for several years to come.

The procedures for “Death by Fire” were simple. We’d capture ten or fifteen grasshoppers and put them in one of Mom’s canning jars to await their execution. Some we’d squish, some we’d pull their hoppers and antennae off and turn them back loose to fend for themselves, but most were to suffer a fiery death.

We would take gas meant for the lawnmower and pour it around the glass jail cell filled with grasshoppers. We’d strike a match and set flame around the jar, thus starting death by fire. We’d continue pouring gas around the jar to keep the flame high. As the jar inside grew hotter and hotter the hoppers would try to jump to freedom. Of course, we had the lid securely in place and each hopper trying to escape would make a resounding “pop” when it hit the lid. Soon it would sound like we were making popcorn as the grasshoppers went mad in their attempt for survival. Alas, soon the popping would stop and we had a jar full of well done, dead grasshoppers. Then we’d capture more grasshoppers and start over again.

It was on one such “Death by Fire” excursion that I carelessly spilled gas on my pants. I was oblivious to this fact until we lit the match to start the usual fire and my pants burst into flames. I’d seen a lot of fire during these exercises, but the sight of fire on my own clothes turned me into a hyper jack-in-the–box!

I jumped and screamed. I ran and hopped. I shook my leg. (I didn’t use my hands to try to beat the flames down because I knew that would burn me…duh) Still the flames persisted to leap from the fabric of my pant leg. I was more than a little worried my skin would soon feel the agony we were hoping to inflict on the grasshoppers.

Dennis kept a cooler head than I had at the moment. Which is only understandable, he wasn’t the one on fire. He dropped to the ground and started throwing dirt on my pants. Normally I would have sworn at him for getting my pants dirty, but even in my state of panic I could see that dirty pants were better than charcoal wear and I joined him in the dirt throwing contest we now found ourselves in.

The flames were soon extinguished and we had a good laugh at how energetic I had just been. We relived the event momentarily and then grabbed the gasoline and got back to the grasshoppers. This time we were more careful in dispensing the gas.