What we called the woods was a large city block that was never
cleared . The "Woods" was the magic forest of our imagination. We
played cowboys and Indians amongst the tall Evergreen trees and the
Scot bloom bushes; we built a tree house that became our fort, a
hideaway from the world. We camped overnight, with all the fears of
the night.
The D-8 Cat was pushing trees onto a large pile. Large dump
trucks were hauling trash made up of old car bodies, rusted steel
barrels, other dump trucks were unloading fill, to be used to smooth
out the development. Within a week's time, all the trees of the forest
were down.
On a late Friday afternoon, Denny, Larry and me, stood on the
sidewalk across from the woods, and watched the construction workers
throw gasoline and old tires on the piles of trees, then torch them.
We just stood there, watching the flames consume our boyhood
dreams, we never said a word. The piles of trees smoldered for weeks,
the neighborhood was filled with smoke, it was what everyone talked
about, when they met.
I just sat down in the barber chair, and looking out the
window, I could see the burning piles. The barber just said something
about all the smoke, when there was a large explosion, that shook the
barber shop window. The barber and I rushed to the front door of the
shop, just as the mushroom cloud arise up from the pile of wood, in a
matter of seconds, hot ash, parts of tires came raining down on the
neighborhood.
All the fire trucks in the world showed up, along with half of
the Seattle Police Department, almost everyone in the neighborhood was
questioned, the final results of all the investigations, was the
following statement: The cause of the explosion was gasoline, the
source or reason unknown.
After Fact: Four boys, pushed the barrel of gasoline over, then rolled
it down over the hill, onto the pile of smoldering wood.
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