Geoff's memory from Memories of JJ

It's Raining Garbage

Growing up on a ranch involved a lot of chores. For me, one such chore was to burn the garbage when the burn barrels got full. Like most kids, I felt that chores were a thing to get through as quickly as possible; particularly when completing a chore came at the expense of something I'd much rather be doing.

One year, just after Christmas when I was a teenager, while messing around with my shiny new gifts, I was reminded by my Dad that the burn barrels were full and that I needed to burn the garbage that night. The holidays generate an inordinate amount of trash. After procrastinating the entire day, I was forced to tackle the chore in a hurry, as it was getting late. With speed in mind, I recalled a time when I had watched my dad utilize about a cup of gas from the blue gas can he kept in the back of the tool shed. So, I ran across the crunchy snow to the tool shed.

(When I say crunchy snow, I mean the type of snow that is just hard enough to make you think it will hold you, but then the surface breaks and you fall through. The kind that requires big, marching steps. The kind of snow that makes moving quickly difficult. You know that type of snow? It’s going to be important later.)

Anyway, I finally get to the tool shed, grab the closest red gas can, and then sprint across the yard back to the four waiting burn barrels. Well, "sprint" in the theoretical sense because, again, the snow. When I arrived at the first 55-gallon metal barrel, I flipped off the lid and poured about a cup of gas onto the bags of garbage, several of which were completely full of wrapping paper. Once I had dispensed "enough" gas (definitely more than my dad used…), I proceeded down the line of barrels, adding the same guesstimated amount of gas to each.

To be safe (ha!), I decided to put the gas can back in the shed before lighting the blaze. This whole process probably took five minutes, which meant the first barrel had been allowed to marinate nicely. I remember the closer I got to it, the stronger the gas smell was, but I somehow missed it as kind of a red flag. Anyway…

Standing next to the first barrel, I pulled out a box of matches and grabbed one to strike. The instant the tip of the match sparked, I was surrounded by orange light and a very loud "whooomp" assaulted my eardrums. Blinking the fire out of my eyes and jumping back, I looked up just in time to see the second barrel catch, followed by a massive fireball and another "whooomp", as a flaming bag of garbage flew 20-25 feet into the air. Barrels three and four followed suit with their own loud "whooomp", belching blazing trash bags into the sky.

For me, it all happened in slow motion, but I know it was actually rapid chaos of flames and raining garbage. Once the flashes and explosions subsided, I realized the magnitude of my situation: all around me, atop the crunchy snow, were piles of burning garbage and clumps of fiery wrapping paper were still raining down. Kind of like fireworks. Instinct - or, more likely, panic - hit me and I started stomping on each pile, scrambling to put out the little fires everywhere.

As I was struggling to run through the crunchy snow to each pile of garbage, I hear my Dad's voice from the back porch: "Geoff, are you ok?"

I mustered a sheepish, "yeah," and he chuckled. He told me to clean up the mess and then he went back in the house.

Years later, he told me he saw the whole thing unfold from his seat on the couch, and when he said it, he did that same chuckle. "I bet you never mixed up the blue diesel can from the red gas can again!"

And I never did.

I'm grateful to my Dad for giving me the space to make my own mistakes and for being there to help me learn from them. Dad, I'll miss you.