Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 11:59:49 -0500 From: Charlie Ford Subject: A Friends Writing A good friend and colleague of mine writes essays, many have been read on NPR. Joe Follman lives in Tallahassee, Florida and is the Service learning Director for the State of Florida. When he was a kid, his dad worked for the railroad and owned a VW microbus. Joe has several times expressed a fondness for that bus and his childhood. Joe has recently written this piece and sent it to me as he does several of his writing's. I hope all of you enjoy his piece. Be sure and listen for him on NPR. Charlie ____________Snip_______________ Burning Desire The libido is an unstoppable force of nature. It can cause the male preying mantis and male spiders to become post-sex snacks for their mates. The Illiad tells the story of a ten-year war fought over a woman in ancient Greece. Desire has landed Presidents into trouble in "affairs" of state, and it nearly burned me to a crisp one steamy day 20 years ago. It was the summer before my high school junior year and I had a girlfriend with whom I was determined to spend some unchaperoned time. The problem was it was mid-August and my family was about to take its annual two-week vacation driving cross-country. Don't get me wrong; as a child I'd enjoyed these trips with my six family members in a VW microbus. As a teenager, however, I no longer got a thrill out of auto bingo, guessing how many miles to the silo on the horizon, or counting road kill. But how to get out of it and spend the time with my girlfriend? Curbing my lust long enough to come up with an idea, I offered to paint the house if I could stay home. My parents fell for it, figuring that painting would keep me occupied and exhausted. But the energies of a teenager in his sexual prime are undiminished by a few hours of painting. Besides, this was in sub-tropical Tampa. It rained nearly every afternoon, and if I did not quit by lunch time all the new paint would be washed off by the afternoon thundershowers. Now, I'll bet you're ready for the juicy parts about the girlfriend and liaisons in the afternoon rain. Sorry, this is a family station and anyway the story is about getting burned, remember? So there I was day after day, painting walls and trim. One morning as I worked by the front window, I stepped in a bed of fire ants hidden among the white rocks and was bitten about 20 times. This of course would not do, so I stomped over to the garage and heaved out my just-filled five-gallon gas can. I mowed lawns in the neighborhood, and kept the can in the garage between the cars. Slopping a generous portion of leaded regular on the offenders, I lurched the can back to the garage, got some matches, said "Adios, you blankety-blanking ants," and dropped the flame . . . I pause now, but there wasn't any interlude in the ensuing events. In moving the can, I had spilled gas in a trail leading from the ants back to the garage. And now--at what I had hoped would be a moment of pyrotechnic and poetic satisfaction--"fire" ants; get it?--I instead watched with stupefaction as the fire raced along my spill trail back to gas can which erupted into flame inches from the cars in the garage. Tearing over there, I couldn't help thinking this was just like what always happened to Yosemite Sam when he tried to blow up Bugs Bunny with gunpowder. Gas got onto me and then ignited. Suddenly, scenes from my all-too-brief life began to cascade before my eyes with great clarity and fantastic speed. I was positive that I would die--I had seen all those detective shows. I knew what happened when gas caught cars on fire--BOOM! At that moment, the only thing I could think of was--no, not how I was never going to have my liaison--but rather how furious my parents would be to discover that their burnt-up kid had not only burned down the house, but two cars as well! The gas on my skin burned itself out, taking only arm hairs with it, and I noticed that there had not yet been an explosion. I got the hose and put the fire out. Someone told me later that it is the gas fumes that are explosive; I was saved by a full gas can. As this story is already so stupid, I won't go into detail about how it was replayed the next day; how the ants bit me again; how I carefully poured gas on them without spilling any; how I dropped the match on them; how the previous day's gas trail still had enough gas in it (it hadn't rained for once) to flare back to the can; how I caught fire; how my life flashed before my eyes again as a re-run. You don't want to hear it and it is too embarrassing to tell. Just one last thing. Don't ever leave your teenage son home alone when you go on a trip. Joe Follman "79" Transporter, dressed for the road The Mothership The"Turning 40 Nostalgic VW Service Tour, and Search for the Beginning of Wind". www.armory.com/~y21cvb/charlie/charlie.html "Wider still and wider.....shall thy bounds be set"