SEPTEMBER 16, 2020 – When I was little, our house caught fire—or rather, our attached garage did. The cause: a box of hot ashes that the cleaning woman had stowed between studs of the garage wall. At the moment Mother yelled, “Fire!”—I was on the living room floor listening to the phonograph play the story of The Ugly Duckling.
Mother grabbed me and ran out of the house. (My oldest sister remembers Mother telling her to “grab the baby”—our youngest sister—and run to the neighbors.) As we passed in front of the garage, tall flames licked a wall. Mother put me down and closed the garage door—“to deprive it of oxygen,” she told me years later. She then picked me back up and raced to the neighbors’ home across the street. I remember looking out across my mother’s shoulder and seeing big orange flames flashing angrily behind the windows.
Awhile later, fire trucks appeared, sirens wailing. I covered my ears as I peered through a window of the neighbors’ kitchen. The rigs were white—not red like my toy fire truck—and I wondered if white had been chosen to help calm down people who might be frightened by red.
The fire was put out, and we returned to our house and its now charred garage. I wandered back into the living room and saw the phonograph needle skating over cracks in the glossy “rink” around the spinning record label.
That was my “fire story.” Decades later Dad told me his version while he and I were visiting in front of the fireplace one winter evening . . .
“Nice fire,” I said.
“Yeah—unlike the one that nearly burned the house down,” he said with a chuckle.
“I remember,” I said.
“Did I ever tell ya?” Dad started, as he reached for the fire iron and adjusted a log on the grate. “Mother called the operator, who alerted the fire department, then called me. The courthouse [where Dad worked], was just up the street from the fire station. I ran to the car and reached the fire station right as the trucks were pulling out.
“Perfect timing,” said Dad, returning the fire iron to its holder. “I figured I’d stay right behind them and let their sirens and flashing lights clear the traffic for me too.
“That worked fine, until . . . the firemen reached Main and Ferry. They should’ve turned left, but instead they kept on going—speeding right outta town!” The rising excitement in Dad’s voice gathered over his face.
“I followed, leaned on the horn, and raced up alongside the rear truck. The driver realized something was amiss and pulled over. I explained things. We all then turned around and roared back into town and the house—which I hoped wasn’t going to be a total loss!”
Amused by his own telling of the story, Dad laughed generously, as did I, warmed by distant memories.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
