Light My Fire but Don't Burn Down the House

My husband was a brilliant fellow who spoke several languages, had multiple college degrees, wrote several books and was totally devoid of common sense. It's not really his fault that he was lacking in common knowledge, because he came from the sort of French aristocratic bourgeois family that had a maid, nanny and a cook; whose supervision took so much time out of the parental day; it left preciious little time for his parents to give common sense lessons to their children.  In France, aristocratic families have no need of common sense anyway: that's what the "help" is paid to do.

This means that my poor husband did not have the benefit of learning how to camp, make fires, use knives, fish, water safety or any of the other things we girl and boy scouts take for granted. He was once horrified at the presentation of S'mores on a stick until he tasted one and  then he was the gran French afficiando de camp fire cuisine which made him kind of crazy when there was a fire around.

In the beginning I often caught myslef chiding him that we could not burn the milk carton in the fireplace because it would melt and smoke up the house. Several charred milk cartons later I was saying we cannot burn magazines in the fireplace because they make a dark dense smoke......get my drift? The year we owned our first home together; we went through ten smoke alarms from December to March. Every day was another exciting experiment in pyrotechnology at our house and another ruined relentlessly screaming smoke alarm ripped from its perch on the ceiling in true Gallic furor as the squealing offender whined of impending danger. Needless to say all this smoke left our freshly painted yellow walls looking like the inside of a Cro-Magnon cave sans cleverly spray painted figures of bison and uber women.

Quickly, my husband began to resent my motherly suggestions on how to handle fire with safety and caution. I became the scourge of fire making and we finally had to block off the chimney and put an end to fires inside the home or else divorce..... or worse.

Putting an end to fires inside the home did not seem to detach dear hubby from turning over a new leaf in the back yard: and burning all the new leaves he turned over as he also discovered burning the trash was a good thing; even though he was duly informed by me there was a city ordinance against outdoor burning.

Our new deck was the unfortunate recipient of the burn award of the month when my husband threw a lit cigar into a plastic trash can full of papers and when it caught fire, he sat it out on the deck as he went to take a shower. Several minutes later a clean hubby emerged from the shower to see dark black smoke streaming through the windows of the TV room that faced the deck. I was working next door at the Insurance Agency and my boss came in the door with his cell phone saying he was calling 911 because there was a fire in the neighborhood (I barely stopped him in time; I knew it had to be Michel). Dear reader, if you have correctly assumed that the cigar set fire to the papers in the trash can and the plastic trash can set fire to the deck you have got an A plus in deductions. I arrived on the scene just in time to see my dear boy, with hose in hand, had put out the flames but the black smoke still clung in the air for hours after. For many months we had to place a large potted tree over the spot where the circular trash can had branded a dark charred hole right through the deck.

The nadir of my husband's pyrotechnic endeavors came shortly after we purchased a wonderful cedarwood beach house on Bolivar Peninsula. After the great hurricane flood of 1900, the beach houses in this area were all built on wooden pylons at least one story in the air. We had a large wooden staircase in the front of our home but no other entrance or exit existed for the house, the living area was on the second storey and the master suite was on the third storey. We truly felt we owned a piece of paradise with waving palms trees, flowering shrubs and lots of Gulf views with the water smack in front of our house.

To my husband's great chagrin even the wilds of Bolivar also had an outdoor burning ordinance (according to me) but he decided to ignore my warning and set his own bonfire whist I was in the shower one day.

When I emerged from the shower in the third floor bath, I went to the font sliding glass doors to look at the Gulf, but all I saw was smoke billowing all around the house. Quickly I threw on a dress and ran down the stairs to the living room, grabbed the dog and fled out the door. As I walked out the door I noticed the smoke was all coming up around the front stairs, it was thick grey and choked me and the dog. We thought we were taking our lives in our hands as we ran down those stairs only to find my husband smugly underneath the bottom of the stairs with a roaring bonfire he built under the (wooden) house and our next door neighbor standing out between the two houses, cell phone in hand,  transfixed by panic unable to move or speak. Quickly I grabbed the hose and began to turn on the water when Michel began to holler at me not to put his fire out. I lost it this time and we had a huge arguement while I am still trying to water the fire and he is still defended his right at a Free Frenchman to build fires if he wished. Finally, I think he saw the folly of his actions and let me douse the fire with water and we both revived the neighbor. We never spoke about this incident and I supposed we never would because he still thought I was wrong for putting out his lovely fire.

Anyway, sure enough, later on another fine day Michel lit the space heater on the bathroom wall and took a shower. After he got out he hung the towel on the rack....heater still going and M. was shaving,
brushing teeth and so forth....while towel caught fire
and started smoking. I was at the computer and thought
I smelt smoke but not sure (nose stopped up as usual)
then a naked Michel is dancing through the room into
the kitchen (trying to hide the burnt towel so he can
stuff it in the trash without me knowing?) as the
smoke alarms were announcing his folly. I say, "what's going on, what's
burning?". Like a naughty kid who is caught he hisses,
"oh nothing, it is nothing" while the smoke alarm
screams away. So, I say well it's hardly nothing if
the smoke alarm is engaged and squealing. About that
time M. says " oh neighbor is at the gate and I am
naked - you go see what he wants" I storm out, I knew
what he wanted: not to be burnt down when our house
burns up.

Sure enough there is poor John at the gate, cell phone
in hand about to call the fire department and Anne his
mother-in-law hanging over the railing of their
house....wondering if we are going to burn their place
down too (the houses are close together). I thank them nicely
and mutter something about Michel catching a towel on fire
but trying not to be too specific as insurance
companies frown on gas space heaters and seem to want
them disconnected...... so that was another day in Michel's arson infamy . The neighbors barely spoke to us after this fiasco and sold their house within a few months.

There, is still burning scorch smell in bathroom, one
dead towel, Michel might have possibly learned a
lesson but I doubt that fact very much.

The sad thing is that Michel's parents never taught
him anything common or sensible and he knows nothing
about fire or gas or chemicals or anything. They were
French society and the kids had nannies. He actually
had his own nanny to dress him and take care of him
until he was well into upper childhood and then was
sent away to school. So, he knew 6 or so languages
and everything about books but nothing about daily
commmon life. He was not a boy scout or anything of the sort, never went camping or fishing or did any of the fun
outdoor things, and those experiences really help in later life.

As for me, my Adirondack training and the fact I was a
Camp Fire Girl and had a Dad who loved to hike and
liked flora and fuana, gave me a great basis which I
tend to take for granted; not so my dear Husband.

M. was a real pyromaniac too (LOL). He loved fire. He conjured up ways and reasons to make fires. He drove me nuts when we had the house on Crystal Beach because he was
always setting fires with leaves and grass (he raked
up) in the high winds and usually it was too dry to do so. Ditto M. was the reason Sean's house had big burned spots on the side yard (M.'s bonfires).

The sad posting to these little vignettes is that Michel chose to go into the fire at his death. I sat in the funeral mortuary wondering if he enjoyed his fire as we watched his coffin slide hydraulically toward the flames. In France cremation is partially witnessed by the funeral attendees. I wish, more than anything, I had not kept that mental image souvenir but I supposed Michel was looking down giddily clapping his hands as he watched his final fire.