I recently took my three kids camping for the first time. My big fear was that they would hate it. They wouldn’t want to sleep in a tent, they wouldn’t understand that there is no TV, they wouldn’t be OK with a shared toilet. But they all did really well. Sure, they need to work on understanding the concept of quiet hours – but to be fair they have that same problem at home. The kids were good. It turns out the biggest challenge I had was with myself.
Since the dawn of man, the ability to make fire has been central to existence. If you didn’t make fire, you didn’t didn’t eat and you starved and/or froze to death. Natural selection. Though fire was not exactly a matter of life or death in this particular instance, it was still a test of not only my survival skills, but a test of being able to provide for my family.
As far we’ve come in the areas of education and grooming, there are still some very primitive instincts and motivations in us. In this case, the caveman portion of my brain was activated by the need to feed my family. The hot dogs were sitting there, ready to be cooked on an open flame. The marshmallows were there, ready to be toasted to gooey perfection. The kids were there, constantly asking about said mallows. The fire pit was there with no fire in it. Staring at me. Challenging me. Questioning my manhood. Waiting for the opportunity to naturally select me and my family out of existence.
Between countless camping trips and having a fire pit in my backyard, I don’t even know how many fires I’ve successfully made. But I do know that it is 100% of the fires I’ve tried to make. Sure, some of them have been chemically aided, but who hasn’t flung a match from a reasonable distance at a pile of wood splashed with gas?
But this was different. This was being one with nature. Just a man and his wood. As God intended. While I fanned the struggling embers the best I could, it was an uphill battle. The fire ring was sunk into the ground and getting no air flow, and the wood wasn’t exactly dry. With each little flame that would start to grow, the excitement grew in my kids.
“The fire is ready, get the marshmallows!” my daughter shouted as I nursed to life a flame that was no bigger than my pinkie.
A flame would rise, fail to spread, then die. Match, after match, after match, after match, after match. And that’s all. Literally. When I opened the box of matches there were only five left in the box. I burnt through my match supply like they were tiny little pieces of wood. Without a fire or matches to start one, I went to camp store. Naturally, my kids wanted to come with me. Sure, let’s have them be first hand witnesses to their father’s inability to provide for their most basic needs. If a caveman couldn’t start a fire he’d die, but at least he didn’t have to listen to his kids ask how come the fire isn’t working yet while he was freezing to death.
I quickly scanned the camp store and didn’t see matches. What I did see was lighter fluid. Big, full, enticingly flammable bottles of lighter fluid. Tempted as I was, I couldn’t do it. Our forefathers were out on the Oregon Trail starting fires with rocks and buffalo crap so they could keep their kids from getting dysentery and dying, and here I am looking to take the easy way out so my kids don’t have to wait much longer to eat too much dessert. I asked the guy who worked there where the matches where.
He handed me a tiny box of penny matches and said they were on the house. At first I thought, wow what a nice guy. Then I wondered if he could sense the weight of generations of fathers who didn’t make their kids eat room temperature hot dogs sitting on my shoulders and took pity on me. It was only until I got back to the camp site and tried to use the matches that they were free for a good reason – they were garbage. The box had 32 matches in it. I would bet that at least 15 immediately snapped in half as soon as I struck them. Most of them never lit at all. Visions of movie cowboys flashed in my mind as they coolly and effortlessly lit their matches on the bottoms of their boots or their belt buckles or their own thumbnail. Where the hell where these matches? Where they just movie props? If so, are you telling me the prop master at MGM in 1948 can make a better match than an actually match company in 2023? Do better.
Anyway, I didn’t count how many actually did light, but I do know this – the 32nd one did.
Down to my last match, fanning embers, trying not to curse in front of my children, a flame slowly spread. My wife and children would eat. The most primitive obligations of manhood had been met. I could rest easy beside my fire and have a beer. I hath provided.
I Think Therefore I Dad 