Campfire magic ~ July 3, 1996

David Heiller

We asked a couple friends over on a recent Friday night for a campfire. We didn’t have any big reason to see our friends. No card game was planned. There was no birthday party, no potluck supper. Just the campfire.

We visited, and roasted marshmallows, and made s’mores, and broke out the banjo and guitar and sang songs.

All around the campfire.

It was a beautiful June evening, cool though to keep the mosquitoes away. Lightning bugs twinkled in the field. The sky was full of stars.

But the campfire was the real star of the show. It glowed with warmth, and heated our souls as well as our bodies.

We sat in a circle around it on chairs lovingly made by the late Gene Lourey, which made it even nicer. Every so often someone would add a piece of wood. Then the fire would flare up and light our faces in pumpkin orange.

Noah starts a fire.

Talk came easy. Long pauses didn’t bother anybody. The campfire filled them in.

One of our guests was a teenage boy who had just come back from a camping trip. Some girls had come over to their campfire one night, he said. They looked pretty good, he said. But the next day they didn’t seem as attractive, to put it more mildly than he did.

I don’t mean to sound sexist, but campfires will do that. Campfires can soften the hardest features and the hardest hearts. They can turn stoic Swedes into the cuddliest curmudgeons you ever saw.

Campfire smoke carries romance and joy and contentment. There’s nothing finer than to put on a sweater on a cold winter morning and smell the smoke from a summer campfire in it. It’s something that helps keep you going until the next spring and the next campfire.

Campfire smoke has a mind of its own, though. It sometimes singles out a certain person at the campfire and torments him or her.

That happened last Saturday. We lit a fire and a friend and his daughter came over. The smoke chose to torment the innocent daughter. Not the crusty old dad. Not Cindy or me. The daughter. She moved to the right. It followed her. She moved to the left. It followed her.

It was pretty funny. For us. At least it kept the bugs away.

The Midsummer fire at the Askov City Park on June 22 had a lot of magic too. It was a bonfire, not a campfire, but the spell of the fire was there nonetheless.

People stood around it, they sang around it, and finally they held hands and formed three big circles and danced around it. Some of the songs were old Danish tunes that go way back. Some were newer rounds. It was beautiful.

Dancing around a fire.

Incredibly, I heard that a few people had grumbled about the fire. They thought it was too pagan. Maybe that was just a rumor. Maybe sour grapes.

Midsummer fires are traditionally associated with a witch burning. Personally, I’ve never seen a witch at a campfire. Fires usually keep them away.

I did see a lot of smiles and good fellowship and joy and love at the Askov Midsummer fire, just as I did at our humble campfire.

I could go on and on but you get the point. Campfires are just plain good. Light one up, unless you live in Askov. Then you’d better give the city clerk a call first. Arla would like that. She’s a fire dancer from way back.