Life rekindled
by
Fred Afflerbach | Business Writer
Published: May 18, 2009
Telegram staff writer Fred Afflerbach spent a recent week on vacation mesmerized by a campfire. Fred Afflerbach/Telegram
At a routine checkup following a weekend camping trip, our family doctor must have wondered how, at about age 7, I had singed my eyelashes. The campfire, I explained, got too close.
Four decades later, transfixed by orange coals and yellow, flaming tongues, I cross my legs on a stump, and put pencil to paper.
In a world where immediacy threatens our tranquility, a campfire provides an opportunity to pause and reflect. It soothes the nerves better than any sedative packaged in a pill, fermented and bottled, or rolled in paper for inhalation.
A campfire is relaxing because it stirs all five senses.
Like a breakfast cereal, dry oak branches snap, crackle and sometimes pop. And with a steady south breeze fanning the flames, a campfire sounds like a flag fluttering in the wind, or sheets flapping on a clothesline.
A campfire is a visual treat. Comparable to watching clouds on a breezy day, logs morph into arches, bridges, fire-breathing dragons or serpents. At my boyhood campfires, my brothers and I gazed into pockets where coals throbbed like they were breathing. We called them boiler rooms.
Campfires warm more than just the heart. On cold nights, I’ve stood before a campfire and rotated my body like a rotisserie chicken. Campfires heat only one side at a time.
Although you can’t directly taste a campfire, grilling pork chops, sausage or hamburgers over campfire coals brings out flavor no stove can equal. My father, Charley, and Uncle Raymond masterfully shoveled campfire coals under an adjacent grill suspended by cinder blocks. The trick - extract the embers without having to rebuild the campfire. At night, they nestled orange-red coals around a cast iron pot simmering with beef stew.
You can smell campfire smoke wafting across a pasture, fence, road. Take a slow breath - aromatherapy. Here in Central Texas, mesquite emits both a sweet, yet pungent odor and a live oak campfire smells like a scene from a Western novel.
I’ve learned to appreciate a modest campfire. Here’s a maxim from a fellow campfire lover: The white man builds a big campfire and stands back. The red man makes a small campfire and gets close.
Sitting by a campfire, I’ve enjoyed friendly discussion about politics, religion and family history, but never heard harsh words. Like Knights of the Round Table, all voices are equal around a campfire.
Ninety-nine years ago, a Vermont couple founded the first nonsectarian girls organization in the United States. They called it Campfire Girls because “campfires were the origin of communities.”
That communal spirit is evident today in the Southwest. For back porch fire gazing, we’ve adopted large, outdoor clay pots with a wide mouth and open top, called chimeneas.
President Franklin Roosevelt took the campfire spirit indoors. Aiming to inspire Americans during the Great Depression, his radio broadcasts were dubbed fireside chats.
With a long drought here in Central Texas, county officials have implemented burn bans that have doused my campfire plans for almost a year. Finally, spring showers turned the land green.
So, here in Mills County, I drop another log on a low campfire and recall why I purchased this small ranch, top-dressed with prickly pear cactus and a limestone outcropping. I’m not a hunter, rancher, nor farmer. For me, it’s all about the campfire.
Campfire tranquility glows inside us all. We just need an occasional spark to rekindle the flames. Singed eyelashes are optional.
Editor’s note: Before lighting a campfire, check with your county officials about a burn ban.