It's pseudo-spring in Calgary - that time of year when the seasons take turns tormenting us with alternating hope or despair. As I was driving home yesterday afternoon, I saw thick smoke pouring from behind a garage on an alley. I pulled a uturn and drove up the alley to see a man filling a burning barrel with leaves and grass cuttings. It was the red flame showing through the holes in the side of the barrel that reminded me suddenly of the large burning barrel on the far side of the washroom block at Landsend. Did you ever fill it? Do you remember the sheer joy of stuffing matches into small holes in the bottom of the barrel, lighting it up, and watching the flames grow until they shoot through the heavy metal screen laying across the top of the barrel to keep the embers from reaching the nearby trees. My enduring memory of the barrel was that metal screen, with edges so sharp that they sent one passing camper to hospital for stitches, and so hot that they burned my fingers on more than one occasion.
That's what I loved about camp - the chance to do things that I didn't get to do at home or through the rest of the year. Like setting barrels of garbage afire, and watching the flames shoot out of every available opening. Like running full-speed through the woods at 2 in the morning without a flashlight. Or leading a cabin-full of kids to accepting Christ. It was an intensely short time, in an intense time of life, and thankfully, back in the day, we didn't have the paranoia or over-protectiveness which sanitizes camp experiences nowadays. We could throw 5 or 6 staff members (or even campers) into the back of an open pickup truck and race up and down a winding dirt road from the beach, or down the back roads to the Astrophysical Observatory, without seats, let alone seatbelts. Certain risks were acceptable, certain injuries to be expected, and many things forgiveable which now would be cause for lawsuits or worse. Like that razor mesh on the burning barrel. Now there are color-coded recycling bins, and composters, and nothing is burned in deference to the ozone layer. But what's the fun in that?
