It was a hot July day, the kind of day that lent itself to kids hanging around doing little or nothing at all. We were down the alley by my dad’s old Studebaker car with the big running board playing with a jackknife tying to stand the blade on index finger while it was held against the top of the head. When this little feat was accomplished, you used the other hand to knock off the knife, trying to make it rotate on the way down and stick straight up in the ground. Charlie and Doc, two of my buddies, were tied for the most number of straight stand up stick attempts from the head and were switching over to the same game but this time off the end of the nose when things changed dramatically.

In that instant pandemonium broke loose. General Lee, his real name was Warren, but we called him general, naturally, looked up toward the street and said “Old man Ruppert’s house is on fire”.  All heads swiveled up and over to the left toward the white wooden house right next door to our white wooden house. Sure enough smoke and flames were coming out the kitchen window billowing towards our house, a distance of only a few feet. The scene was chaotic! Someone at Connine’s ice cream store right across the street saw the fire and was racing to the corner to pull the fire alarm switch. Mr. Ruppert, who was heating tar in a kettle on the kitchen stove to repair his roof, came screaming out of his house and grabbed the end of a garden hose and tried to spray the fire. However, my father who was napping on the couch had already dashed out of the house and had the other end of the same hose and was trying to spray water on our house to keep the sparks from setting it on fire. Both of them were screaming “turn on the water turn on the water” As I said it was pandemonium.

Very fortunately, the fire station was only a few blocks away and the firemen got there quickly, they brought the tar kettle out to the alley, and kept the damage to the kitchen area.

They gave Rupert a lecture about the stupidity of heating tar on a stove in the kitchen of a wooden house. Then Ruppert and my father had a few words and Rupert apologized.

It turned out to be an exciting day for my friends and I. We saw the fire, meet the firemen, and then Connine gave the firemen and us ice cream for free.

Later on through the years, amid much laughter, the story about the fire and Ruppert and my father each having the end of the hose and shouting for water was told and retold over many beers.

Raymond Morrow