Pyromania and Men

                                              
                                           
                                            How perfect is this picture?  I bet a Man took it...

Pyromania is defined as a compulsion to set things on fire according to dictionary.com.  I am pretty sure that if you are a Male, you suffer from this.  But is it really suffering, or just sweet??  I don't know if I have ever met another Man that doesn't like fire.  Maybe it's not even considered Pyromania, but just an infatuation.  I mean, think about it, fire is awesome.  It's bright, warm, colorful, crackly, smells good, and the best part is it burns things to nothing if it's hot enough.

My love of the flame goes back to when I was a kid, so I am guessing we are just born that way.  We used to take lighter fluid and spell our names in cursive in the backyard and then light one end of it.  If you have never done this before, I highly recommend it.  I do not recommend doing this in the garage though.  Sorry about the chair Mom.  My brother and I had fire pits all over our 18 acres of wooded property.  We would clear an area, cut down some trees for a perimeter, gather some large stones for our pit, get some wood, and start a fire.  Then we would sit back and cook some hotdogs while looking at dirty magazines and smoking stale cigarettes that we kept in a Ziploc bag.  Don't judge us, we were 10 and lived in the woods, this was our summer vacation.  Most of my fondest childhood memories include fire.  Whether it was when I was 6 and I dropped my hotdog in the fire and there wasn't anymore and David gave me his or when I was 9 and Wayne and I bent pipes shaped to resemble guns and shot bottle rockets at each other and caught the woods on fire.  We put it out, but why did it have to land in the leaf pile??  That made it a tad bit harder to extinguish.  Even when we went fishing we would start a small fire to keep the bugs away.  We used fire to light the firecrackers to blow up the crayfish we caught and we had a huge fire every Thanksgiving to burn all the brush and sticks that fell into the yard throughout the year.  That reminds me, when you are a Dad and you put gas on a giant pile of wood and you forget your Zippo.  Take the gas can with you when you walk back up to the house to get it because your kids will dump a lot more gas on it and when you light it you will blow back 10 feet and singe off your eyebrows and your beard.  Sorry Dad :)

Now, I don't recommend just going around starting fires, and I don't recommend dumping gas on a fire from a can that doesn't have a safety valve (as you may know, this is why I still have both hands).  But you can safely enjoy fire any time anywhere.  I have a fire pit in the back yard and I love it.  I like to put things in it and watch it change shape.  Whether it's something that burns, starts on fire, or melts it's interesting to watch it break down to ashes.  Some of you women would probably think, "Wow this guy is nuts!"  But you would be wrong, all Guys are like this.  Some may be in denial of their infatuation of fire, but it's true.  Some men only go camping just to light a fire.  You know why?  Because it's the best part.  Nobody loves sleeping in a tent, dealing with mosquitoes, and pooping in the woods.  It's the campfire that draws us in.  Sure the fishing is fun, but what happens after you catch the fish?  You start a fire and cook the damn thing!

Don't compare my love of fire, or any Man's love of fire to being an arsonist.  It's completely different.  Those people are crazy.  I, on the other hand, am just crazy in love.  Can't wait till later...


Cheers!


K.A Ball