FTLComm - Tisdale - August 20, 2000

It was spring and we were planning our difficult summer, Judy was taking a university course in July and we would have a short holiday in August so it was decided to put something in our back yard to enhance our experience and give us a mini holiday with out going anywhere. At the end of May we ordered a little backyard fireplace and a park bench expecting to have them by mid June or early July at the latest. Judy goes back to work tomorrow, the fireplace and park bench arrive on Friday so our little backyard haven will have two days for us to enjoy. But, making the best of things is what makes us prairie people what we are and Friday the two things were assembled and Saturday night at five I started getting the fireplace ready for its first yard warming.

Every camping trip, every summer, the camp fire was the feature event of each day, chatting, story telling, singing songs, roasting marshmellows, enjoying the warmth of the fire and of each other. It was always a special time for my wife and I and our three little boys who as is their nature, they grew up and indeed were not with us to share the embers of the fire last night. But they might as well have been there as we talked of them, thought of them and wished so much that they had been able to share last night's fire with us. At one point I thought I should give them a call so perhaps them might come the eight hours drive just to be with us Sunday night. Are we getting old, yes, and proud of it, but the fascination of shared experiences around a fire at night will live with us always. One summer I read Jacob-Two-Two at camp fires, and every year I would strum my guitar and laugh out a song or two, just as I did last night. Timothy W. Shire