Last time I went out on a trip with the extended family (we’re roughly 20 people, give or take), it was in a rented big structure with a sleeping area, a dining area, and a kitchen, and a yard outside with a place to make a fire. We started a fire, but come dinner time they all wanted to leave the fire going and eat at the table.
I absolutely refused. No way in the world in leaving a fire unattended like that. I said we either stop the fire altogether (and restart it later), or I’ll stay watching it until someone comes to replace me.
In the end I took a plate of food and ate it by the fire alone, until someone indeed came to replace me and I went to finish the meal at the table. It turned out fine, but it really annoyed me how no one in my family saw sense. They kept trying to convince me to just come and eat dinner… as if the social togetherness somehow makes the risk of starting a forest fire unimportant?! There’s some smart people in my family, but some days I don’t understand how they can all be so blind to the obvious reality.
Personally it sounds like bliss eating a good meal alone by the fire.
I generally try to avoid “this” style comments but, almost word for word, this is what I was here to say.
Sure, it was alright, but I do love my family too ❤️
Lucky you.
Boy Scouts taught me the rule that if you are leaving and you had a fire, that it needs to be put out to the extent that you’d willingly stick your hand into the middle.
Scared it might be hot? Put it out more.
What if you put it out using all the left over hot water you made over the fire? Its going to be hot even though it is currently underwater!
Checkmate atheists
I don’t want to stick my hand in the lukewarm piss-mud. How long do I keep going?
That’s just making sure you did it right the first time
Every time I go camping I think about all the knowledge we have lost now that this is further and further from our every day experiences and even just being a less common recreational activity.
I recently learned that the outdoor recreation curriculum was being cut from the school board I attended 30 years ago and that’s a big loss. I lived in a big city with > 50% of the population being born elsewhere and programs like these are sometimes the first opportunities these kids get to learn outdoor skills relevant to their new home.
Why would anyone make a fire, and then make food that can’t be eaten at the fire?
I had a BBQ going one time and one of my friends was going through a rough patch and didn’t really feel very sociable but would disappear into the woods, come back with a log, chop it into firewood and then poke the fire a bit while adding fuel.
He didn’t say much that day and spent at least 12 hours just tending the fire and one of my friends who didn’t know him said “Man theres always gotta be the fire guy”
It’s like yea… Before we had much technology we had the fire and if we were fortunate enough we had a guy who really liked doing that. People have probably been saying something like this for a million years.
I was at a hotel up in the Alps in France that had a fire going and the staff put absolutely no effort into it so it sat there smoldering on life support. So I took a log and rearranged things boyscout style and kept that sucker going till it was too hot to get near. Everyone gave me the weirdest looks like I was some crazy American. Like nah dude, gotta keep the fire going, it’s the best part.
It’s an opportunity to play with fire and do something positive. Why wouldn’t I be that guy?
spoiler
I don’t feel called out at all
I too, am of the order of fire watchers. May the flame keep you warm.
Don’t worry guy, we appreciate you
That’s me. Just not white? Is being white a mandate for this role?
Traditionally, yes, but it’s not obligatory. Fire does not consider the color of flesh, nor the gender of it’s attendant.
No. Hearth fire tenders are needed where they are needed.
Man I fuck wit fire. Well, used to; my old, crippled ass can’t fuck wit much any more.
Point is that being the fire tender isn’t exactly a no skill job, and it comes with some serious benefits.
You gotta have at least a basic understanding of how fire works if you want to keep it going, and learn how to keep it controlled. That’s why fucks-wit-fire is such a coveted, but demanding, position. See, you gotta keep an eyeball on it. Stacking in fresh fuel in the right way. Keeping adequate air flow. Moving unburned fuel into the center. It’s a dance.
And for that effort, you not only get the delightful scent of wood smoke in your beard, and the glow of warmth across your flesh, you get to see the ever shifting beauty of the fire and the embers. A constant flux of colors and lights that seems alive. I’d hypnotic, meditative, and can be a spiritual experience if one leans that way.
Ash, drifting on breeze settles into your hair as sleep looms and you bank the fire, setting things up for the chilly morning to come, you look down at your friend glowing beneath ashes that only reluctantly settle in for the night.
You go to your rest warm, fulfilled, and at peace.
Mate i like your romantic narration and all but I have to break it to you, that delightful scent of wood smoke in your beard is actually a stink. That campfire smell gets everywhere and sometimes you have to wash your clothes twice just to get that stank out. Its still fun though.
I dunno, back in my younger days camping with my family I was always up in the smoke and my clothes were fine. Had long hair, and it was never a bad smell. As I got older and did have a beard, I can’t recall it ever smelling unpleasant the next day, and I’m known for catching even faint smells after years of taking care of patients where faint smells can be a sign of something important.
Maybe it depends on the wood? I know a pure deadfall fire can be stronger smelling, and you can get some strange odors indeed if you buy firewood that’s been sitting, though I can’t think of any that stank.
Ok well it might not be a terrible smell, but it is strong and stronger than I think a lot of people that have been around a fire realise. Perhaps because of o bit of nose blindness that you can get from sitting around that for too long but it can be a bit of a shock to someone coming from outside. At one point I lived for a bit at the edge of civilisation and Roma people would sometimes come around selling their wares on market day - and I’m talking the tent and horses type here. I tell you, I could have my back turned and I could smell them approaching from several steps away.
What’s with the trend of mentioning that people are white and connecting it with things they do? I also see live streamers do this a lot (including in reference to themselves) and it’s strange to me
Always some white guy in the comments going on about how white people doing white people things is not something worth mentioning.
I don’t think it’s outrage bait because again, often the context is someone talking about themselves, and no arguments are started. But this didn’t used to be a thing, so what changed?
It’s definitely an American thing. Whites in America are called whites because we’ve disgustingly erased our previous cultural heritages throughout the generations. Colonial governments prefer homogeneity so they tell everyone “you’re not who you were before. You’re American.” Non-whites in the US have noticed this about us as well and in a shitty way they get punished for retaining their cultural heritages.
So in the internet age we joke about this lack of defined cultural tradition and make observational humor about filling that missing part of ourselves with odd things. Like being averse to spicy food (we’re not) or owning dogs with human names instead of having children (a thing poor couples of any race do).
This one was obviously a stretch, obviously anyone can get fixated on the fire. I couldn’t tell you factually but I think camping is a more stereotypically white thing in the US so when you see a white guy take a particular interest in something unremarkable you can make a joke like “that’s his culture”.
By acknowledging your privilege you don’t have to do anything to change it.
Your privilege to poke a fire with a stick?
You didn’t really campfire if you don’t smell like campfire
That’s because burning shit is more interesting than talking to you idiots.
Fire is a fickle little thing that if not attended, will die immediately or get wildly out of control. It moves, breathes and eats. Every piece of fuel must be assessed for moisture, shape, size, and the potential to create smoke or embers. Fuel placement is critical, depending on the purpose of the fire, you can make it burn faster, stronger, longer, or create a good bed of coals for cooking. Fire gives warmth, and light while also containing desolation and death. It is a balancing act with dire consequences for falling off either side of a thin line of control.
Occasionally a log will pop or snap, and throw out a little spark show, and that is cool.
I think you’re vastly overstating how delicate of a balance a campfire is in, but i wholeheartedly agree that the intellectual challenge of perfecting air flow, choosing the correct placement, and all that is a wonderful way to spend time
Proto-tv
There’s also the grill master or chef character that gets to stay to the side of party cooking delicious things for people. That’s me, and my dad, and maybe it’s you.
What that does not include is the other guests being idiots or uninteresting people by default. Social anxiety is what is, but automatically thinking negatively of other people is a hole that is very hard to climb out of.
You could say the same thing about friendship but something tells me you don’t know about that one
One fire guy is ok. Two fire guys is a disaster.
If you have two fire guys, one fire and one girl, you better bring the guitar before you join them. You don’t even need to play it, it just has to be there to pacify the fire guys.
Once a couple friends and I decided to take some acid and camp out in one of the friend’s back yards. He had a metal tow-behind trailer that he had put up some plywood walls on and draped a tarp over the top. This was in Florida but during the 2 weeks of winter we get so it was actually pretty cold at night.
The plan was for us to all sleep in the trailer, and we even had a little space heater going, but I was closest to the back of the trailer and the cold air was coming in more than the heater was warming me, so I couldn’t sleep (the acid didn’t help either, it had been several hours but I was still feeling it for sure).
To stay warm, I got up and re-lit the fire which was in a circular cinderblock about a foot tall and a foot wide. Throughout the rest of the night and the morning I continuously tended the fire, only occasionally stepping away to grab more sticks from the woods.
It was one of the most peaceful nights of my life. It did fully kill any enthusiasm I had for tending fires though. The smell of smoke didn’t come off of me for days afterwards. Ever since then I’ve had no problem letting other people take over the fire whenever possible.
I am that white guy. You’re welcome.
It makes me feel weird about people that barely start a fire, and don’t tend to it. Like I’m holding someone else’s baby. Then feeding it. Then sending it to school. It’s my baby now, but it still has your name. Ugh.
Its our fire now
It makes me feel weird about people that barely see babies as property, the name attached is the value not the person who didn’t ask to be born and needs help.
(To be clear I’m not saying you do this specifically, it’s more a cultural thing where people will see other people as unworthy unless their name is on it)
…why would I thank you for fucking with the fire going? I’d want someone who helps it keep going instead of fucking with it.
Because the post uses “fuck with” in the sense of “man I fuck with peanut butter cookies, they’re the best” vs. “I would love some but peanut butter cookies fuck with my stomach”
The meme says “one white guy who really fucks with keeping the fire going.” He’s clearly not fucking with the fire. He’s keeping it going.
The real trial is being this guy when other people decide they’re going to start a fire and by the time you get there they’ve done it all wrong and the thing is smouldering and coughing up smoke and barely staying lit at all as they cram handfuls of pine needles and barely dry leaves into places while there’s a full-ass log precariously balanced on top of it all and they’re saying things like “Maybe we should pour a little lamp oil on top of it?”
And then you have to be the adult and take over the whole operation.
My sister and I are both the girl version of that guy
If you insist on being the person to play with the fire, please, for fuck’s sake, know what you’re doing.
Understand that the 2ft wide wet uncured stump you found in the woods will not burn no matter how hard you try. Smoke is not a sign of success.
It’ll burn, you just need more other fire to do it.
I remember a time we melted an aluminum pan in a fire… that was a good fire.
Trick question people used to ask, after a heavy rain where can you find dry wood? Split the wet wood and in the middle will be dry wood!
Not a guy. Fire, good. Burn everything.
