St. Etienne’s Song
Posted on January 30, 2006
Filed Under personal |
The one I’m thinking of remains in my memory only as a title: “Can’t Sleep”. I can’t sleep right now, so I thought I would share in some of the amusements of camp. Whilst teachers enjoyed the remnants of a huge fire from earlier in the evening:

… Shawn decided, not having shown his manhood enough by becoming an expectant father, that it was a good night to go firewalking. Without a shirt on.

At least he kept his running shoes on, though, or I’d have been horrified by the proceedings. More quotes from Shawn to come soon… especially one involving an offer to eat pet food. Yes, really.
Ah, Winter Camp. It feels so good to be free.
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Dude, if you’re going to play with fire, the SAFEST thing to do is shave every square inch of skin and do it naked. Undies if you really need them.
Leastways, I haven’t heard stories about the NAKED HAIRLESS people setting themselves on fire when there’s a bunch of people playing with fire….
(And you really want a spotter with some soaking wet towels nearby.)
Me, I’m a little pyrophobic, I have no idea why I get involved in things where people are doing some serious shit with fire, unless it’s that I got sucked in my some friends, and the closest friends were at least pretty sane about the whole fire thing.
Well, this fire thing, it was a crazy bonfire that was concocted as a camp activity. Some uni staff hauled out old furniture — probably soaked in horrible chemical-laden paints — and soaked it all in a ridiculous amount of petrol. When the time came, they set it alight and it just went up, like, 25-30 feet at least — and early on, I think, as tall as a three or four-story building, counting the top plume of smoke. I missed the early flames because I was so shocked by it, and only started shooting it when the flames had come down by 30-40%.
It was HOT. And we had 150 kids swarmed around it. This is the kind of thing that ought to have scared the hell out of whoever was in charge of the camp, but it didn’t, apparently. Not even when, an hour and a half later, she decided it was a good time to roast marshmallows. (The embers were still too hot to approach. Shawn’s firewalk came a good hour after that, and you can still see enough flame to make a wise man wary.)
But you know, it was a pretty damned good bonfire, all things said. And it was fun to see Shawn walk that fire. I’m going to miss the poor crazy bastard.