Bonfire of the Manatees

It had been 2005 since we had done this. The amount of time that passes in the interim almost makes our previous bonfires mythic. So yeah, that's what I'm building up to, we had a bonfire. It's not like the 8 or 10 other bonfires I've been to in the last two years. Those almost always involve less fire and even less laughter. Well I don't want to suggest that other bonfires are as funny as Schindler's List, but these ones like the one last night are more special.

To give some examples in the past we've nearly lost eyebrows, we've shot the hood of my car with a BB gun, taken walks through a 180 year old cemetery, put glow sticks in beer bottles and throw them into walls, Drew kicking a couch apart Rick James style, and watching me accidentally hit another car. I didn't even get into the fiery explosions in very much detail.

And then there was last night.

This bonfire was nearly two years in the making. It's not that we can never get together, it's just remarkably hard to get that much firewood.

Last night's was big. A new charcoal grill was brought in for the event. It took four people one hour to assemble. Even when they flipped the instructions over and read them in English. I took a picture too, but due to some confusion the picture is bound to forever be in the confines of my cell phone.

The grill worked, at least to the best of my knowledge. I was waiting for hamburgers, we put them on last. Word to the wise, if you're having a barbecue and there is beer and the people cooking are drinking the beer the food that gets put on last will never be edible. However Drew, I won't judge. The gigantic patty would have tasted incredible if it had never shrunk down into nothing.

Every party has it's oddball, last night we had the strangest of them all. This crusty old guy kept bringing us firewood. While we were gracious enough, he seemed to be partying on a level all his own, a level nobody would be able to catch up with. He arrived with his firewood and stumbled out of the truck beer in hand. Rednecks scare me and he'd be a 10 on the redneck scale. A crusty Vietnam vet drunk out of his mind, my uneasiness really speaks for itself here. Eventually he passed out in some ghostly fashion and I'm led to assume he's still there.

We had fireworks but I nearly forgot to mention why, Chuck and Colleen got engaged. I'm not sure if they meant to steal the show but it certainly led people to forget that I brought a third of the beer. I'm just kidding, I'm quite happy for them. The town supervisor came out and put a stop to our fireworks, but while it lasted it was a great two minute show.

I decided I didn't want the title to make any sense.