| While I was walking through thick layers of fallen leaves at the parking lot at work recently, I was quickly taken back to my youth (again). It's really neat to listen to the "crunch" and sound and feeling of walking through a thick layer of leaves in the Fall. Although I am definintely a "Summer person", I think early Fall is my favorite time of the year. Who can forget the fun of raking a BIG pile of leaves, then jumping into the pile! Ah, the sounds and smells of burning leaves! Of course, even the innocuous act of raking and piling leaves didn't escape our youthful escapades. One of our favorite things to do in the Fall was to rake a big pile of leaves then pour gasoline all over the pile and then wait a little while for the gasoline to soak all the way through the pile. Then we would make a "fuse" by pouring a small stream of gas from the edge of the pile to a safe(?) distance away. We would then throw a match at the end of the "fuse", and when the traveling fire would reach the pile it would explode with a "PHOOOPMPUH" with all kinds of burning leaves flying in all directions. We did this a lot at our place since we had an unlimited supply of gasoline from our farm "gas barrel". The more gas we dumped on the pile and the longer we waited, the bigger and better the explosion was! We never knew the exact point that the "ultimate" explosion point was, because we didn't bother to wait too long before detonating our "Leave Bomb Pile". This was due again to the phenomenon of "Kid Time", in which a normal second is compacted into a "nano-second", thus passing much faster than it does before measuring all things in "grown-up time", in which a second finally reaches normal time duration. On other auspicious occasions we would stroll through town and light every leave piles we came across, which resulted in the whole town being engulfed in the wonderful aroma of burning leaves. Unfortunately, with the wonderful aroma came a lot of smoke which also engulfed the town! It's too bad the "Environmental Wackos" have banned buring leaves in towns these days! Living on a farm in an agricultural zoning area, such as we do, is a "Lil' Bit-o Heaven", since we can burn anything we want any time we want, especially leaves! Sometimes, when no one is around, I like to burn small piles of leaves I kick up into a pile. Before I burn them, I have been known to "accidently" stumble into the pile (due solely, of course, to my unsteadiness due to my old mid-life body. |
