The Year Was 1952

I was all of nearly five years old.

In our two-story apartment, it was a normal day like any other during the months of summer. And on one day, normal would change abruptly.

It was late afternoon as I best recollect. It wouldn’t be much longer before my mother would start dinner. I knew this because every week, she would sit down and watch her two favorite soap operas, ‘The Edge of Night’ and ‘The Secret Storm’. Once they were finished, she would march out to the kitchen and prepare a tasty meal.

On this one particular day, right after Edge of Night finished, she did go to the kitchen to start boiling potatoes. When she returned, I was still sitting on the floor, playing with my toys, namely my Fort Apache fort, with waxed characters trying so hard to look like Lieutenant Rip Masters, honorary Corporal, ten-year old Rusty, and Rin-Tin-Tin. The fort was made of tin, but it was so much fun to pretend playing out scenes I watched on the tv show. Other characters came with the set so I could mix up the bad guys anyway I wanted.

When my mother returned, she settled in to watch her other show and I had to go to the bathroom, which meant walking past the kitchen.

On my way, a glimmering flicker caught my eye, but the bathroom came first. When I finished, I went back to the kitchen and walked to the stove and leaned over looking at the flame under the pot. It was the first time I actually noticed it and it had my full attention. I knew not to touch it because many times I heard my father say that fire is a bad thing. He was a volunteer fire-fighter, but at the moment, there were no fires, and he was at work.

Looking around, I saw the paper bag in a basket of sorts that held trash, so I ripped a piece off and stuck it under the pot then pulled it back quickly. For three long seconds (maybe), like being hypnotized, I stared at the bright flame. When it came to close to my fingers, I quickly got rid of it.

Under the sink are twin doors made of some sort of metal and in the middle just above them were three, you could say, like mail slots, and slipped the burning paper threw that. Then I went back to the front room where my mom sat.

Things went pretty good for all of ten minutes when I saw it first and then I became nervous—and scared. Smoke.

My mother saw me starting to cry and asked why and I could only point. Forgetting her show, she walked over and could see the smoke now billowing from the kitchen and making the dining room area cloudy with thick smoke.

She didn’t hesitate one second. She picked me up in her arms and hurried to the dining room to find the thirteen steps that would take us outside. Hurriedly, she went across the street, banged on a door, and asked them to call the fire department and keep and eye on me. Theresa said she would, and interestingly enough, because of this, they became life-long friends, just as I did with their youngest son, Peter, nicknamed ‘Sonny’.

From this point I don’t know exactly what happened, but much later, after the fire department came and left, my mother had gone back to the apartment, found a bucket and started filling it with water to try and keep the fire contained.

Again, from what I heard, she did such a good job that the biggest damage was the wall of the kitchen, the stove was melted, and fire-fighters had broken open a side window to the kitchen to spray water. It was over in practically no time.

I do remember that after it was over, I told my mother in a hitching crying fit, what I had done. Was she angry? Hell, yes. But she was more concerned for my safety and to keep us from being homeless because of my curiosity. She never gave a thought to herself or her own safety, but as I have looked back on this a time or two in my life, without realizing it then, my mother could have died because of my foolishness.

She was the bravest woman I have ever known.

My father was right. Fire is bad.

Did I get punished? You better believe I did. It’s one I won’t get into, but it was a punishment never forgotten.

Lesson learned.