Chasing That Horizon!

It was cold that morning. Huddled inside my barely warm bag, I lay there, trying to seal the minuscule air leaks that inevitably allowed the cold outside air to enter, chilling the back of my neck. It had rained through the night, not a hard driving rain that that finds every pinhole from every stitch holding the flimsy, albeit expensive tent together. Rather, it was the light misty rain that when mixed with a slight breeze, would drop the air temperature, like standing under the heater vent when the furnace first kicks on after a not-warm-enough shower. Burrowing deeper into the sleeping bag, I wondered if, had I spent another hundred dollars on the bag, would I be any warmer. Feeling a slight rumble from below, I briefly considered passing gas to warm my bed, then remembering the chili and onions from the night before, abandoned that thought in favor of coming out of there alive. "Damn, its cold".

Peeking out the top of my bag in the pre-dawn grayness, I saw my best friend John, just snoring away in his bag. John was smart. He had covered his head and shoulders with his polyester-filled jacket that he had purchased when we were sailors visiting Korea. I laughed then, asking "What the hell do you need that big bulky jacket for, especially when we get back to Southern California?" I didn't even have a jacket that was warm enough without adding extra layers. Watching him lying there in his comfort, I briefly considered killing him and taking the jacket for myself. Regaining my senses after a few minutes of musing, I decided to get up and start a fire.

We had a grand fire the night before. With lots of downed wood to burn, we had dinner and stayed up late, listening to oldies on the transistor radio and drinking Wild Turkey. The flames danced, the embers glowing brightly, undulating like the Fires of Hades. After a few swigs of whiskey, one could almost see the little demons prancing about in their flaming grotto as they danced to the strains of "Bye Bye, Miss American Pie". The air became cold and heavily laden with moisture. Like skewers on a rotisserie, we kept turning our bodies toward the flames to warm up, first the front, then facing away with our butts pointing to the fire pit, trying to muster up a fart just to see if the flames would really jump. That didn't work so well, so as the temperature dropped and the whiskey ran out, the flames lowered, and we decided to turn in. Falling asleep was easy after hiking twenty miles and a drinking fifth of booze, and I hardly stirred until a few hours later when my bladder said it could wait no longer. Getting out of the bag, dressing, and crawling out of the tent and into the cold, wet gloom, I found my relief, and reversed the process as quickly as I could, glancing over at John and wondering how is that he never seems to have to get up? As it did just a few hours later, murder crossed my mind.

Slumber never returned, and I lay there, tossing and turning for the next few hours. Between the falling rain, the sound of falling pine cones, and the falling temperatures, I just wasn't falling back asleep. Crawling out again in the early light of dawn, I surveyed my surroundings. The fire was out cold. The leftover wood was wet. Our supply of tinder paper was burned the night before without consideration for the next day. The ground was wet, as were the fallen leaves and needles. I was cold and my clothes were damp. "I want my fire, dammit!" Digging through the wood pile, I was able to find some relatively dry pieces. And when I lifted the deep carpet of fallen pine needles, there were dry needles underneath.

Only one thought raced through my mind and that was "I'd better not screw this up!" After clearing the wet coals from the fire pit, I lay two large log pieces parallel to each other, and about a foot apart. Placing a similar piece of wood at the end, a U was formed, separated by a half-inch gap. Piling dry pine needles in the center of the U, I lofted them to allow air to pass through easily. Smaller sticks were laid perpendicular to the big logs, forming a bridge, always leaving a gap to allow the air to circulate. More, successively larger sticks were crisscrossed until a pyre was created. I had fuel. I had oxygen. Now, I needed a heat source to complete the triangle. Where were those matches? We got pretty drunk the night before, and didn't necessarily think of preparing everything for the weather. Reaching for my uncovered and now wet backpack, I discovered that water had found its way into the pocket containing the box of wooden matches. The carton was sodden, and upon opening, it was apparent that the matches were wet as well. Pulling a match from the box, and dragging the blue tip across the patch of flint on the side of the box, I hoped to hear the snap of ignited phosphorus followed by the whooshing sound and smell of burning sulfur. Instead, I was rewarded with the thunk and dull sound of the match head crumbling as it clogged the pores of the flint striker. These matches were not lighting any fires today.

Frantically, I dug through the pockets of my jeans, then my coat, then the entire backpack, searching fruitlessly for dry matches, or any flame source for that matter. There were none. Having quit smoking a year earlier, there was no Bic lighter. The last Bic I had was used up and lost as I held it high, screaming for an encore at the Pink Floyd concert a few months prior. I remembered that I held it too long, the metal ring burning my fingers, and dropped it, watching as it bounced in slow motion from the raised bleacher floorboards to the arena floor below. The vision passed with a slight smile as I recalled the sights, sounds, and smells of the concert, and then, the present situation rushed back to me. I am not a stick rubber, nor do I carry flint and steel, nor would I know how to use either. I looked around the camp contemplating my next move.

We were in the Navy then, and our ship was undergoing a year-long overhaul in Long Beach. As the ship was uninhabitable at the time, they quartered us in the enlisted barracks on the base. It wasn't a bad gig, with four men assigned to a room, each of us having our own corner. We made it our home with a large rug, a stereo, and a pre-2600 Atari video game console, which was the hit of the barracks. Pong had come out only a few years earlier, and the video game craze had not yet hit the mainstream. Our room had a constant line of guys waiting to play Breakout. We had a nice place, but when weekends came, some of us were ready to get out of town and go backpacking. In the ensuing months, our camping trips took us to the San Gabriel Mountains, and San Bernardino National Forest, as well as Mt. San Jacinto and Joshua Tree National Monument.

Our collection of camping gadgets grew as we figured out what worked, what didn't, what would fit in our barracks room, and what would fit in the back of my Volkswagen. Tiny flashlights, folding candle lanterns, freeze-dried foods, anything that was lightweight, multifunctional, and cheap was considered. I bought a flaming orange nylon backpack at the Navy Exchange, along with a cheap sleeping bag and a Norwegian Army white gas cook-stove. That was the prettiest stove, all gleaming brass and polished aluminum. Closed, it measured 6x6x3 inches. The lid turned into a nice pot for heating water. It came with a little grip handle, which I still have to this day. There was a little plastic priming bottle and a big black key. To use this thing, you had to fill the beautiful brass tank with Coleman fuel. Under the burner was a shallow cup into which you squirted some fuel from the priming bottle. Light it with a match and allow the fuel to burn as it heated the shiny brass tube that led from the valve to the burner. You had until the pre-heating flame was just starting to sputter out, and then you turned the key to open the valve. If you did it right, a hot blue flame would erupt from the burner. Do it wrong by allowing the pre-heating flame to extinguish, and all you'd get was the whooshing of hot vaporized gas. You would then need to re-light it with another match before it cooled down and halted the vaporizing process. As the burner got hotter, the pressure and flame intensity would increase as well, and the key would be used to adjust it. It was complex simplicity! Water would boil in just a few minutes, and I would have my cup of pre-mixed Taster's Choice, sugar, and Coffee Mate.

I've always liked matches for camping. They felt right, much more than a lighter. I don't think the long fireplace lighters were around then, and if so, they were more of an expensive novelty. No, for me it was Diamond Matches. Ohio Bluetips, made in the USA since 1881. Strike anywhere or on the box. Wooden stems, 2 1/2 inches long, you could light a campfire, pre-heat a good cigar, or find your way in a dark basement while looking for the fuse box. Diamond Matches have always occupied a spot in our camping box. A carton of 900 lasts forever. Our box was so battered and torn that it was covered in duct tape until, after 20 years of camping, we finally replaced it with a new box. Wooden matches were my tool of choice.

On that cold, wet morning, I stood with vapor steaming from my breath as I searched for a solution. My gaze fell upon a little canvas utility belt box that I always carried on my backpack, but it had been generally useless. It contained a snakebite kit which had, thankfully, never been opened, some Band-Aids, a spare battery for my Maglite, and a combination whistle with a built-in compass and signal mirror. Picking up the compwhistle, I heard a slight rattle inside. The contraption unscrewed to expose an inner compartment, and in this hidden compartment was one single stick match. Why just one match inside? I don't recall ever using the compwhistle, nor do I recall ever putting matches in it, but perhaps one of my camping buddies did.

This one match stood between thoughts of a pleasant day of warm sun, blue skies, singing birds, and babbling brooks, and the perceived reality of freezing my nads off. And it came from inside a compass/whistle/signal mirror/match holder, bought for $2.99 at K-Mart. This opportunity was given to me by chance, and I had but one chance to get this right. Licking my finger and holding it aloft, I checked the wind speed and direction. Looking up, I made sure there was no water dripping from the tree branches into the fireplace. Making sure I was on sound footing so as to not slip and fall with the last burning match in my hand, I squatted down on my haunches in front of the pit. That is certainly a position that can no longer be performed. Re-adjusting some of the rocks to assure a decent airflow without risking too much wind or turbulence, I then took one last observation of the conditions, and unscrewed the compwhistle. The inside cap had a small piece of match striker flint. Sure, it was a Strike Anywhere Ohio Bluetip, but with the wet rocks, I wasn't taking any chances. Leaning ever closer to the fire pit, with the match in my right hand and the striker in the other, I checked my balance, inhaled, and held my breath. Striking the match, an audible snap was followed by a beautiful blue orange flame. Touching the flame to the pine needles at the bottom of the fire pit, they lit immediately with a crackle and wisp of smoke. The match burned almost to my fingers, and I dropped it onto a different part of the unburned needles, doubling the chance of a successful fire start. As the damp needles slowly caught, I carefully held more needles above the flame until they dried and then flared up. The key to successfully starting the fire is to not waste the rising heat of the flame. Heat goes up, not down. Put the twigs and needles where the rising flame will ignite them. Adding small twigs, the flames grew in intensity until the crisscross of sticks constructed earlier finally began to dry and smolder and then burst into flame. In no time at all, the fire was roaring, my body was warmed and dry and all was well with the world.

The moral of this story has to do with proper construction of the fire. If you can't light it with one match, then you probably built it wrong and won't be able to light it with two, or three, or four matches. And if you do manage to get it lit, it probably will not burn well and will require constant attention. I have personally witnessed newbie campers holding a lighter to the end of a log, trying to start a fire without tinder or proper wood placement. A very recent experience had a camper dousing the wood with charcoal lighter. That works, but it's so...city.

This not meant to be a tutorial on starting a proper campfire. I'll leave that to the scouts. But there are few things more frustrating when camping, than watching someone struggle with a smoky, poorly constructed fire. They will fight it for hours, constantly turning logs, smothering the flame, and smoking everyone out in the process. Fire needs three things: Air, fuel, and heat. Heat rises, so have the fuel above the heat source. Fire needs to breathe, so leave a small gap between the logs for air to get in. Make a one-match fire your challenge on your next camping trip. It requires some thought, some planning, but no luck. If you build it right, it will burn right.

I spoke with John recently. More than forty years after that camping trip, he still has that polyester-filled jacket from Korea hanging in his closet.