Finding the Fire
It’s fire season here in Central Kansas. Before moving to Hutchinson, I was not aware of a fire season. I had never heard of a “controlled burn” and I’d never seen hundreds of acres of land purposefully set ablaze. Where I come from, if you see a big column of smoke in the sky, it means a building is on fire. Someone’s home is gone. 300 jobs lost unexpectedly. Local schools evacuated because of haz-mat fumes. Before moving to Kansas, a big column of smoke on the horizon was a weeknight tragedy, in retrospect, an event marking the end of my childhood and the loss of my religion.
It was a Thursday evening the summer after my freshman year of High school. Classes had just ended for the year, and I had just gotten my restricted license. Those first hot days of my first summer as “real” teenager were full of promise and temptation. My parents had just gotten home from work, and we decided to go get something quick for dinner. As we drove out towards Woodruff Road – a major commercial area, and the street where our church was located – we saw a big black column of smoke rising in the distance. We were just about to get on the interstate when my dad’s cell phone rang.
My dad is a jovial, optimistic kind of guy. He’s a truly great man and he always looks at the positive side of every situation. He’s one of the few people in the world who are genuinely nice and actually care about everyone else. His happy, confident demeanor is evident in the way he answers his phone. “Hello, Saaaaaam Farley speaking!”
As an elder in the church, my dad was one of the first to get called for church emergencies. Music leader has the flu. My dad gets a call. One of the members was in a car wreck. My dad gets a call. The AC isn’t working and the minister is out of town. My dad gets a call. On a hot South Carolina summer evening, on the way to dinner, with an ominous black cloud on the horizon, my dad gets a call.
“Hello, Saaaaaam Farley speaking!”
He hits the breaks. He goes very still. His throat works. His eyes get red around the edges.
“How bad is it?” he asks. He hangs up the phone. He turns the car around.
“Sam, who was that? What’s going on?” Mom asks. Mom, as sweet as she is, does not have the jovial nature of my father. Mom is a worrier. She is loving, kind and pragmatic. She hopes for the best, but fears for the worst.
“The church,” Dad said.
“Well, what did they want?” Mom asked, getting a little frustrated.
“The black smoke…that’s the church.” A tear rolled down his cheek. It was the first time I had seen my father cry since my grandfather died.
Dad took Mom and me back to the house. I wanted to go. I wanted to see. He wouldn’t take me. At the time I remember thinking that he kept me from going because he thought I’d get in the way. Now I realize that he wanted to shelter me, to keep me safe, both physically and emotionally.
News of the fire spread…well, like fire. The praise and worship team was supposed to be in the building rehearsing. Andrea, the pianist, had gotten there early and had smelled smoke during her warm-ups. By the time she left the building, the roof was already in flames. No one was hurt.
After a couple of hours, I convinced a friend of mine from church to pick me up. It was around 8 p.m., still daylight, the horizon still smoky. The street that lead up to the church was blocked off. The ceiling of the sanctuary was caved in, flames still licking up from time to time, the firefighters running a constant stream of water over the smoldering remains of the building.
I remember a big group of us standing down by the road, holding eachother, sobbing. My dad came down to us to try and offer an explanation. It appeared that lightning had struck the roof of the building. My dad, always the optimist, tried to paint the event in a positive light.
“It probably struck around 5:30 p.m. There would have been a lot of people stopped at the grocery store next door, picking stuff up on their way home from work,” dad said.
“On the other side of the church there’s a nursing home. The church was the tallest building in the area and it was the only empty building. Imagine if it had hit the grocery store or the nursing home. People would have been hurt or died. God knew the church was empty. He guided the lightning there.”
As I stood there watching my childhood crumbling into ash, I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream at my dad for being so calm. I wanted to scream at God for destroying my memories and the building my parents had helped build. But I couldn’t. I could only cry, surrounded by my friends and the people I had grown up with, the people who had helped raise me, the people who had taught me what they could about goodness, faith and love. Surrounded by the people who had built me into a young woman, I watched the building that represented my childhood turn to ash.
I had started questioning my faith and religion before the fire, but after the church burned, I lost whatever faith I had left. In the days after the tragedy, I helped our minister and youth minister sift through the ash and rubble to document the church’s contents for the insurance claim. Standing ankle deep in ash and debris, trying to read ISBN numbers off charred, water-logged books, I felt abandoned by God. The charred, fallen cross teetering precariously behind the pulpit mocked me, a physical representation of my own doubt.
Where I come from, they don’t do controlled burns. They do out-of-control, wrath-of God-lighting-his-own house-on-fire burns. They do somebody-fucked-up-and-didn’t-check-the-controls-at-a-factory burns. Where I come from, smoke on the horizon does not herald a new beginning, it marks an end. Where I come from, fire is not beautiful – it is a destructive imp, scarring everything it touches.
My first summer in Kansas, I saw a few smoky columns on the horizon. I read articles in the paper about controlled burns. I even learned that there was a “burn season.” Last spring, on my way to Topeka, I started seeing columns of smoke.
“It’s just a controlled burn,” I told myself. “They do that here.”
I started counting them. One, two…seven…thirteen…There were so many fires the sky was getting hazy. In places, the fire had been close to the interstate and you could see hundreds upon hundreds of acres of blackened prairie grass or field stubble. Seventeen, eighteen…twenty-three…twenty-seven…There were 31 fires between Salina and Topeka that day.
I have no idea how many tens or hundreds of thousands of acres were burned. At one point, a live fire had crossed the fence line and run up all the way to the edge of the pavement, flames licking across the emergency shoulder of I-70. Each column of smoke was a moment of panic. What if that one wasn’t a controlled burn? Each flame along the side of the interstate was an opportunity for an errant gas leak or oil slick to flare up and catch a passing vehicle on fire. But nothing happened. Through columns of smoke and spires of flame, I drove on, safe. Not a single siren was heard. There were no tales of tragedy in the newspaper the next day.
Later last summer, Robin, a friend of mine from South Carolina, came to visit. On our way back from Lucas, driving out west of Marquette, we saw the tell-tale smoke columns. He had seen controlled burns before, but never any big enough to produce that much smoke. We decided to hunt down a fire. Taking back highways, county blacktops, and eventually township dirt roads, we eventually found the flames.
We stopped and stepped out of the car, watching in awe, appreciating the serenity of the slowly crackling flames, the heat of the fire, and the blackened-wheat smell of smoke. On a lazy summer Sunday afternoon, with no agenda and nowhere to be, we took off down an unmarked path to find a fire and spend a few minutes enjoying the sunshine.
Once again, it’s burn season in Kansas. Last week, after dinner and a trip to Braum’s, Danielle and I were cruising Main Street, eating ice cream cones. Down by the bridge to South Hutch, I saw a couple of smoke columns off in the distance.
“Look like burn season has started,” I said.
Danielle, being from California – a place where fires are wild, destructive outbursts of Mother Nature – was nearly as confused about the controlled burn concept as I first was. We decided to find a fire. Drive it down, check it out. We finally found one between K-61 and Nickerson, back on an unpaved county road. It was past dusk, a slim margin of light blue and yellow barely present at the horizon. The fire burned hot orange, yellow and red in stark contrast to the dark blue sky, dancing a beautiful rhythm across its own small slice of the expansive central plains.
As we stood there on a sandy township road, the flames licking at dried stalks of grass a few feet away, the heat of the fire against our faces and the cool spring night at our backs, it dawned on us that something was missing.
Marshmallows.
This spring I am on a quest. I want to be able to look at a column of smoke on the horizon without fear. I want to find fires. I want to watch them and embrace them. I want to understand that they provide a clean slate, not a destructive mess. I want to create new memories of fires. On clear afternoons I will go fire hunting. This time, I will be ready.
This time, there will be marshmallows.
It was a Thursday evening the summer after my freshman year of High school. Classes had just ended for the year, and I had just gotten my restricted license. Those first hot days of my first summer as “real” teenager were full of promise and temptation. My parents had just gotten home from work, and we decided to go get something quick for dinner. As we drove out towards Woodruff Road – a major commercial area, and the street where our church was located – we saw a big black column of smoke rising in the distance. We were just about to get on the interstate when my dad’s cell phone rang.
My dad is a jovial, optimistic kind of guy. He’s a truly great man and he always looks at the positive side of every situation. He’s one of the few people in the world who are genuinely nice and actually care about everyone else. His happy, confident demeanor is evident in the way he answers his phone. “Hello, Saaaaaam Farley speaking!”
As an elder in the church, my dad was one of the first to get called for church emergencies. Music leader has the flu. My dad gets a call. One of the members was in a car wreck. My dad gets a call. The AC isn’t working and the minister is out of town. My dad gets a call. On a hot South Carolina summer evening, on the way to dinner, with an ominous black cloud on the horizon, my dad gets a call.
“Hello, Saaaaaam Farley speaking!”
He hits the breaks. He goes very still. His throat works. His eyes get red around the edges.
“How bad is it?” he asks. He hangs up the phone. He turns the car around.
“Sam, who was that? What’s going on?” Mom asks. Mom, as sweet as she is, does not have the jovial nature of my father. Mom is a worrier. She is loving, kind and pragmatic. She hopes for the best, but fears for the worst.
“The church,” Dad said.
“Well, what did they want?” Mom asked, getting a little frustrated.
“The black smoke…that’s the church.” A tear rolled down his cheek. It was the first time I had seen my father cry since my grandfather died.
Dad took Mom and me back to the house. I wanted to go. I wanted to see. He wouldn’t take me. At the time I remember thinking that he kept me from going because he thought I’d get in the way. Now I realize that he wanted to shelter me, to keep me safe, both physically and emotionally.
News of the fire spread…well, like fire. The praise and worship team was supposed to be in the building rehearsing. Andrea, the pianist, had gotten there early and had smelled smoke during her warm-ups. By the time she left the building, the roof was already in flames. No one was hurt.
After a couple of hours, I convinced a friend of mine from church to pick me up. It was around 8 p.m., still daylight, the horizon still smoky. The street that lead up to the church was blocked off. The ceiling of the sanctuary was caved in, flames still licking up from time to time, the firefighters running a constant stream of water over the smoldering remains of the building.
I remember a big group of us standing down by the road, holding eachother, sobbing. My dad came down to us to try and offer an explanation. It appeared that lightning had struck the roof of the building. My dad, always the optimist, tried to paint the event in a positive light.
“It probably struck around 5:30 p.m. There would have been a lot of people stopped at the grocery store next door, picking stuff up on their way home from work,” dad said.
“On the other side of the church there’s a nursing home. The church was the tallest building in the area and it was the only empty building. Imagine if it had hit the grocery store or the nursing home. People would have been hurt or died. God knew the church was empty. He guided the lightning there.”
As I stood there watching my childhood crumbling into ash, I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream at my dad for being so calm. I wanted to scream at God for destroying my memories and the building my parents had helped build. But I couldn’t. I could only cry, surrounded by my friends and the people I had grown up with, the people who had helped raise me, the people who had taught me what they could about goodness, faith and love. Surrounded by the people who had built me into a young woman, I watched the building that represented my childhood turn to ash.
I had started questioning my faith and religion before the fire, but after the church burned, I lost whatever faith I had left. In the days after the tragedy, I helped our minister and youth minister sift through the ash and rubble to document the church’s contents for the insurance claim. Standing ankle deep in ash and debris, trying to read ISBN numbers off charred, water-logged books, I felt abandoned by God. The charred, fallen cross teetering precariously behind the pulpit mocked me, a physical representation of my own doubt.
Where I come from, they don’t do controlled burns. They do out-of-control, wrath-of God-lighting-his-own house-on-fire burns. They do somebody-fucked-up-and-didn’t-check-the-controls-at-a-factory burns. Where I come from, smoke on the horizon does not herald a new beginning, it marks an end. Where I come from, fire is not beautiful – it is a destructive imp, scarring everything it touches.
My first summer in Kansas, I saw a few smoky columns on the horizon. I read articles in the paper about controlled burns. I even learned that there was a “burn season.” Last spring, on my way to Topeka, I started seeing columns of smoke.
“It’s just a controlled burn,” I told myself. “They do that here.”
I started counting them. One, two…seven…thirteen…There were so many fires the sky was getting hazy. In places, the fire had been close to the interstate and you could see hundreds upon hundreds of acres of blackened prairie grass or field stubble. Seventeen, eighteen…twenty-three…twenty-seven…There were 31 fires between Salina and Topeka that day.
I have no idea how many tens or hundreds of thousands of acres were burned. At one point, a live fire had crossed the fence line and run up all the way to the edge of the pavement, flames licking across the emergency shoulder of I-70. Each column of smoke was a moment of panic. What if that one wasn’t a controlled burn? Each flame along the side of the interstate was an opportunity for an errant gas leak or oil slick to flare up and catch a passing vehicle on fire. But nothing happened. Through columns of smoke and spires of flame, I drove on, safe. Not a single siren was heard. There were no tales of tragedy in the newspaper the next day.
Later last summer, Robin, a friend of mine from South Carolina, came to visit. On our way back from Lucas, driving out west of Marquette, we saw the tell-tale smoke columns. He had seen controlled burns before, but never any big enough to produce that much smoke. We decided to hunt down a fire. Taking back highways, county blacktops, and eventually township dirt roads, we eventually found the flames.
We stopped and stepped out of the car, watching in awe, appreciating the serenity of the slowly crackling flames, the heat of the fire, and the blackened-wheat smell of smoke. On a lazy summer Sunday afternoon, with no agenda and nowhere to be, we took off down an unmarked path to find a fire and spend a few minutes enjoying the sunshine.
Once again, it’s burn season in Kansas. Last week, after dinner and a trip to Braum’s, Danielle and I were cruising Main Street, eating ice cream cones. Down by the bridge to South Hutch, I saw a couple of smoke columns off in the distance.
“Look like burn season has started,” I said.
Danielle, being from California – a place where fires are wild, destructive outbursts of Mother Nature – was nearly as confused about the controlled burn concept as I first was. We decided to find a fire. Drive it down, check it out. We finally found one between K-61 and Nickerson, back on an unpaved county road. It was past dusk, a slim margin of light blue and yellow barely present at the horizon. The fire burned hot orange, yellow and red in stark contrast to the dark blue sky, dancing a beautiful rhythm across its own small slice of the expansive central plains.
As we stood there on a sandy township road, the flames licking at dried stalks of grass a few feet away, the heat of the fire against our faces and the cool spring night at our backs, it dawned on us that something was missing.
Marshmallows.
This spring I am on a quest. I want to be able to look at a column of smoke on the horizon without fear. I want to find fires. I want to watch them and embrace them. I want to understand that they provide a clean slate, not a destructive mess. I want to create new memories of fires. On clear afternoons I will go fire hunting. This time, I will be ready.
This time, there will be marshmallows.
Redeeming a memory... that's cool. You're a good writer. If you are ever in Garden City, Pho Hoa Restaurant is the place to go, and if you ever want to discuss your faith (not religion), "visit" me at madgmatters.blogspot.com and leave a comment. I'm a sausage-grilling, fire-watcher too!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip, Linda! I may head out to the Garden City/Dodge City area for a weekend trip this summer. I'll have to check out madgematters.
ReplyDelete