ERROR IN JUDGEMENT

I loved the smells of the beach - the salty, clean smells - even the fishy and occasional dead crab smells. It was early morning, the usual time I did my 3-mile walk along the shoreline.

The sky was especially beautiful this particular morning - copper colored at the horizon with orange and yellow bands against a background of rose and blue. It was low tide and small waves were lapping at my feet as I splashed along.

Just offshore, pelicans glided only inches from the surface as they hunted for breakfast. An old gull swooped past me and landed at the edge of the water. He had only one foot but still managed to balance perfectly on the hard packed sand.

I wondered how the poor bird had lost its' foot. Maybe a big sea turtle had bitten it off, or maybe it got caught on a piling or in a net. The gull hopped over to investigate a discarded plastic bag, then lifted its' wings and continued it's food search down the shoreline.

Nearly a mile later, I saw someone sitting in the sand with a pair of dogs. As I got closer to them, the grizzled old man looked like a homeless beach bum. He was just sitting there in the sand with his eyes closed. Was he asleep? Drunk? I just hoped he wouldn't try to panhandle me as I passed by.

As I continued on down the beach, I began to wonder about the man. How could someone live like that? .... Does he or did he ever have a family? ...Maybe he was a criminal......

My thoughts were suddenly broken by the sight of a bird flopping over and over at the edge of the water just ahead. It was another large gull and it had somehow gotten tangled up in a huge mass of fishing line. One wing was bent back almost inside out and its feet were completely bound together.

Then I noticed the missing foot and realized that it wasn't another gull at all, but the same bird I'd seen earlier. The old gull looked exhausted and I reached into my pocket and got out my penknife. As I reached for the bird's wing, it squawked loudly and gave me a hard peck on my hand.

I stood up and looked around the beach to see if there was anything I could use to put over the bird's head. What I saw instead was the old bum and his two dogs walking towards me.

Maybe they'll just walk on by, I hoped. No they won't, I decided, they'll come over here to see what I'm doing.

"Go Away," I thought to myself, "we don't need dogs over here trying to get at this gull".

The old bum gave the dogs a signal and they both sat. I squatted back down to the bird and looked up as the man walked towards me.

"Hey," I said, "this gull is all tangled up and I've been trying to cut this line away, but he keeps trying to bite me."

Without a word, the bum squatted down next to me and quickly grabbed the bird's head in his huge hand and clamped its' beak shut.

"Dere," he said, in a strong, foreign accent, "you cut now".

I began to cut through the line until finally the wing was free. The bird struggled to to get up but its' feet were still bound and the old man kept his grip on its' beak.

As I cut the last of the line away from it's feet, I smiled at the old man, who simply nodded and released the bird's head.

The old gull flapped his wings wildly and flew quickly across the waves then up higher to safety. The man put both his hands on his hips, leaned back and laughed loudly.

"Dere," he shouted, "you vun lucky burrd!"

Still smiling, I said "Thanks, I couldn't have done that by myself."

No longer worried about the man or his dogs, I offered my hand.

"Tank you," said the man, "My name is Jon".

"I'm Mike, Jon - good to meet you. I don't recognize your accent," I continued, "Where're you from?"

"Der Nederlands," he sighed, "but dat vas long time ago now."

I wondered how old the man was. 65? 70? 80? Still thinking he was a beach bum, I asked, "So, do you live around here, Jon?"

To my surprise, he said, "Ya, I yust move into cottage over dere on der point"

I talked to Jon for the next 20 minutes or so. This very intelligent old salt told me how he had left home when he was a young boy and had traveled the world as a merchant seaman - that over the years he had saved enough money to buy his small cottage and live out his remaining days near the sea he loved so much. The dogs were strays he had rescued and now lived with him.

We said goodbye and as I resumed my walk, I realized just how wrong it had been for me to judge this man by his appearance...how easily I had jumped to a false conclusion.

FAST PEEPING TOM

"There's that noise again, Daddy," she said, opening her eyes wide, "I've been hearing it for weeks now, and it scares me."

I knew there was a storm coming up and went to the window. I could see the tall cedar trees bending in the wind, their long branches scraping across the tin roof.

"It's just the wind blowing the trees, honey," I said to ease her mind. "I'll get up there tomorrow and cut those branches back for you."

But I knew the noise was not from tree branches. Something or someone was stepping on the roof. I've walked across our old tin roof many times when cleaning the gutters, and I knew that sound.

"Now don't worry and try to get a good night's sleep -see you in the morning sweetheart," I said. "Goodnight Daddy" she smiled.

Once downstairs, I slipped out the side door and waited a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dark. Now moving as quietly as I could, I gradually made my way around the back of the house, until I got to the edge of the porch. I looked up to my daughter's window, and I saw him.

"Oh No, " I whispered under my breath, "There IS someone there!"

Standing just to the side of her window and looking through the partially opened wooden shutters, was the dark shadow of a man. She said she had been hearing sounds outside her window for weeks.....and he had been there, watching her, invading her privacy.

"HEY YOU !" I shouted.

Without so much as a glance in my direction, he ran to the edge of the roof and jumped into the darkness. It was a low roof, and I heard him hit the ground with a thud. As I rounded the corner of the porch, I wished that I had a weapon of some kind.

I saw him running across our patio towards the fence and I took off after him. Almost to the fence, I suddenly stepped through the open legs of a patio chair and fell, face first and hit the ground.

Momentarily dazed and cursing, I tossed the chair aside and with a bleeding mouth, jumped over the fence. He was now about 50 yards away, and increasing his lead with every step.

Leaving my neighbor's yard, he ran under the streetlight and looked over his shoulder in my direction. I then saw that he was only a frightened teenager and he was running hard. As I reached the street, he was nearly a block away and running easily.

I stopped chasing him at that point, and completely winded and gasping, I turned and began making my way back up the hill to our house, my heart pounding. My wife and daughter were standing on the front porch by now and called to me.

"Mike, What is it? What's wrong?" shouted my wife.

"Daddy!, Are you all right?" my daughter called.

"I'm O.K. - I almost caught him and I think I know who it was" I said, still out of breath.

It's probably a good thing he was so fast or I would probably have spent the rest of the night in jail. But the street light would be his undoing - I knew what he looked like now and could easily identify him.

I also learned another of life's lessons that night...scared runs a lot faster than mad.

RELUCTANT HUNTER

My dad was a wonderful father and I loved him dearly, but we were different when it came to animals. He loved to hunt and fish. I loved to fish but couldn't stand the thought of killing an animal.

When he would return from a hunting trip, I would go to my room. I couldn't stand the sight of the bloody things - whatever they might be.

I tried not to think of the animals when mom served us such things as Brunswick Stew laced with squirrel meat, or dad's favorite - Fried Rabbit with Gravy, or Venison Steaks.

When I turned 14, dad decided it was time I learned to hunt. "Dad," I pleaded, "I really don't want to kill anything."

"Nonsense!" he said, "once you get out there in the woods, you'll love it."

So, we set out one morning for instruction on my brand new "410 Over-And-Under"--a combination shotgun and rifle. Dad showed me how to load it and carry it safely and we spent a good hour firing at targets at various ranges. I didn't mind firing the gun; it was actually fun.

"O.K," he said, "we're ready to bag some squirrels!" As we moved through the woods, he showed me how to keep my eyes scanning ahead instead of down at my feet. After a short while, we finally saw a squirrel climb along a tree branch and jump into a clump of leaves.
"Right there!" dad said, "He's building a nest."

We crept silently to the base of the tree and he whispered: "Now put your gun here against the tree and sight right into the nest."
"Dad," I said worriedly, "I really don't want to kill it. You do it and I'll just watch."

"Nonsense Boy!" he growled, "Now sight along the barrel and squeeze off a shot."

I took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. It seemed like an eternity before the gun exploded. My ears were still ringing when dad shouted-

"Whooee boy! You hit the jackpot!"

I looked on the ground and there were five squirrels squirming in the leaves: two adults and three babies. I had just slaughtered an entire family.

With tears streaming down my face, I threw my new gun to the ground and ran out of the woods. My dad was silent when he got back to the car with my gun and the squirrels.

I never went hunting again.

SOUND IN THE NIGHT

He was freckled faced and scrawny; over 6 feet with a head full of thick, red hair. Bryan was a new college friend of my son Bob, it was midnight and they had just arrived at our home for a weekend visit.

We lived out in the country, in an old, turn-of-the-century farmhouse, and it was still in pretty rough condition.

I was in the process of restoring it and had finished most of the downstairs, but our "Guest Room" was upstairs and had not yet been touched.

The heavy counterweights clunked inside the window as I raised it to air out the room. The glass panes were wavy and cracked and the old wallpaper seemed to be ungluing itself in several places.

Bryan smiled as he sat his suitcase at the foot of our antique bed and looked around. Just then it started to rain and the drops did a little dance on the tin roof outside the window. In the distance, our 1 a.m. train began it's long wail and would pass by within 100 yards of our front door.

Bryan smiled again, looked at me and said: "Oh man, you've even got a train ! This is so cool!" - "What do you mean? I said, "I was about to apologize for the condition of the room."

"Oh, no- please don't apologize Sir," he said, "I grew up in a house just like this over in West Virginia, and that train just took me home!"

"SUMMER CAMP"

Daddy had just settled into his favorite chair to read the paper and Momma turned on the radio. It was exactly 2:30 p.m. - the "Sammy Kaye Serenade" had just signed off and the announcer was introducing the next program. Suddenly, another voice broke in:

"From the NBC Newsroom in New York- President Roosevelt said in a statement today that the Japanese have attacked the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii from the air. I'll repeat that...President Roosevelt says that the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii from the air. This bulletin came to you from the NBC newsroom in New York." - I was six years old.

In the months that followed, my parents sat by the radio every night listening intently to the news. One evening at the supper table, I noticed that Mamma's eyes were full of tears. I looked at Daddy and he was crying too. I had never seen him cry and was instantly afraid.

He smiled at me and said: "It's O.K. Mike, your Mamma and I are just sad. Your brother's going to be in the War and he has to leave soon." - "Yeah, squirt, and I'll bring you back a souvenir!" my brother said, locking his arms around my head.

Not long after Clyde left for basic training, Daddy was made an Air Raid Warden. When he put on his armband and official helmet, I thought he had become a policeman. When he put on the big belt with the nightstick and flashlight, I was sure of it.

I loved the Air Raid Drills. The siren would go off sometime after dark and Mamma would quickly put black cloth over our living room window, light a candle and turn off all the lights. It was spooky sitting in the candlelight and Mamma told me stories until the siren went off again.

Daddy got a letter one morning from Washington, D.C. that said he had been accepted to train as a Firefighter at the Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia.

In the fall of 1942, we left Lynchburg, Virginia and set out for Norfolk with visions of living near the beach and seeing the ocean every day. Reality hit hard when we arrived and found that our new home was in the middle of a crowded housing complex. It was called "Broad Creek Village". Our ocean was a big creek that ran through the middle of the complex.

The "houses" were not much more than long boxes with four small apartments crammed into each box. There were rows and rows of them, all exactly alike and filled with people from places I'd never heard of.

After a few weeks, I made friends with a couple of kids but we had very little in common and there was no place to play. Mamma was unhappy, cried a lot and we were both homesick.

Daddy on the other hand, loved his new job. After all, he did see the ocean every day and also the big ships docked at the Naval Base. He was making more money than he had at the shoe factory in Lynchburg and he got to stay overnight at the fire station every other day.

I was enrolled that fall in Broad Creek Elementary School, which was built from more of the long boxes and a group of "Quonset Huts"- long tubular buildings with round metal roofs.

The "teachers" were mostly volunteers who often brought comic books and crayons to keep us occupied. The War had taken nearly all of the qualified teachers and my education suffered.

On the last day of school the following spring, Mamma smiled at me and said: "Michael, I have some wonderful news! You're going to have a terrific summer!" She told me I would be spending six weeks on her uncle's tobacco farm in Gretna - a tiny hamlet in Central Virginia.

I'd always loved to visit Uncle Allie and Aunt Mary and I was thrilled with the thought of spending almost the whole summer with them. They had three sons fighting in the Pacific and my brother Clyde was now on a Merchant Marine ship somewhere in the North Atlantic. Curtis, their youngest son, was 12 and he was in the same boat I was - no one to play with and nothing to do all summer.

It was a 200 mile drive from Norfolk to their farm, and it seemed we would never arrive. Finally, I saw it. "There it is Mamma! There it is!" I said when Uncle Allie's country store appeared in the distance.

His gas station and general store had brightly colored metal signs nailed to the sides of the building - signs for Grapette Soda, Orange Crush, and Dr. Pepper and "Piedmont Tobacco" was painted across the metal roof in large blue letters.

I loved this store, and always begged to go inside whenever we visited. The main attraction, of course, was the penny candy case ! It had red and green "watermelon slices" made of coconut; red and black licorice twists, and small taffy-like candy bars called Mary Jane's.

There were miniature ice cream cones with marshmellow "ice cream" inside; red-tipped candy cigarettes; root beer flavored barrels and my favorite of all- the little wax bottles filled with sweet colored syrup.

With five pennies in my hand, I stared into the case for 10 minutes or more before Uncle Allie cleared his throat and said, "You want to come back tomorrow?"
"No Sir!" I blurted, "I want two of these, one of those, and two Mary Jane's!"

Even though the candy counter got most of my attention, the entire store was a magical place for a small child. It smelled of country hams that hung from hooks overhead, salt pork, cheese boxes, pickle barrels and lamp oil.

The groceries were stacked on shelves that covered one entire wall from floor to ceiling. You could roll the ladder on wheels along the floor and reach anything you wanted. Their large victorian farmhouse was about 100 yards behind the store.

At suppertime we all sat down to Aunt Mary's long farm table and I was amazed at the sight of so much food. There were pans of hot biscuits and cornbread and a big bowl of her home churned butter -a special treat for us- butter was one of the many rationed foods back home in Norfolk.

After a long prayer by Uncle Allie, we filled our plates from platters of fried chicken and country ham, bowls of string beans and mashed pototoes, fresh corn-on-the-cob, fried apples and sliced tomatoes. A large bowl of white gravy sat at Uncle Allie's end of the table- he insisted on having it at every meal.

I ate until my stomach hurt and then Aunt Mary smiled and said: "Who's ready for peach cobbler?"

My parents left the next morning and as they turned onto the highway, Aunt Mary said: "Time to get ready for church Mike, into the tub you go!"

It was a deep bathtub with feet that looked like eagle claws. She had heated a bucket of water on the kitchen stove and poured it into the water left in the tub after Curtis had finished his bath.

I'm not sure now how clean I got washing with used water, but to a nine-year old boy, I was clean enough. I was puzzled though, that in spite of having so much land and fruit trees and a store, there was no water in the house.

The outhouse was a place to get into and out of as quickly as possible. There were spiders and wasp nests everywhere and I pinched my nose the entire time I sat over the hole in the wooden box.

The next day we got up at dawn. Curtis and I each drank a large glass of cold buttermilk and then got in the back of the pickup truck. Uncle Allie drove us to the tobacco fields across the highway and we joined some of the other farm workers to "pull suckers".

Curtis told me suckers were small shoots that grew from the tobacco stem and literally sucked the life from the plant if they were not pulled off. He showed me how to strip them off so I grabbed a sucker and pulled.

"Aaagghh!" I said, and shook off the remains of a nasty, gooey worm I had squeezed between my fingers.

"Forgot to tell ya bout them tobacco worms Mike, be careful!" he laughed. It only took one worm for me to begin paying strict attention to my job.

After a few hours, someone rang a big cowbell and we all stopped work to have breakfast. Most of the field hands had brought food from home, but Uncle Allie drove us back to the house.

On the table were large platters of fried eggs, thick slab bacon and country ham. There were fried apples, fried potatoes, grits and sliced tomatoes. At home our breakfast was usually cereal and fruit or oatmeal but I soon learned that this was their every morning meal.

As soon as we finished eating, it was back to the fields. The sun was hot now and sweat poured from my head and into my eyes, but the novelty of being there with Curtis kept me at it in spite of my aching back and legs.

Around 1 o'clock, everyone went home to eat lunch. When we got back to the house, the table was loaded again with so much food there was barely room for it. It was the main meal of the day ! In spite of my huge breakfast, I was famished and could hardly wait for Uncle Allie's prayer to end.

During lunch I learned that no one worked in the extreme heat of the afternoon and we would be going back to the fields later. The whole family usually took an afternoon nap and when I stretched out on my bed I fell asleep immediately.

Around 4 o'clock, Curtis shook me and said: "Time to go back Mike, and we get to ride the mule !" The mules pulled long, skid-mounted boxes between the rows of tobacco plants while the pickers filled them to the top with leaves.

I held on to Curtis from behind as we sat bareback on the mule, and when the skid was full, we headed for the curing barn where some of the workers were "stringing" the tobacco.

They would grab three or four tobacco leaves, quickly loop them together with string and tie them to a long stick. When the stick was full, they hung it inside the barn.

I thought it was strange that a fireplace was built on the outside of the barn and Curtis explained that the heat and smoke was pulled into the barn and out an exit hole at the top and that was how the tobacco was cured.

I always looked forward to the nights when Curtis and I could spend at one of the barns and feed the fire. Not only was it wonderful fun, but we didn't have to work in the fields the next day.

One night, Curtis went into the barn and got a piece of cured tobacco. "I bet you've never chewed tobacco, have you Mike," he teased. "Nope, don't think I want any either," I said, shaking my head.

"I dare you," he said, "all you have to do is chew it a little bit and then just spit out the juice." I didn't want him to think I was a sissy, so I put a small piece of tobacco in my mouth and began chewing.

Instead of spitting out the juice, I accidentally swallowed. I not only lost the tobacco in my mouth but also the supper I had eaten earlier. Curtis rolled in the dirt laughing. That was my first and last taste of chewing tobacco.

Before I knew it, the six weeks were over. The night before my parents were to arrive and take me back to Norfolk, Curtis and I lay on our backs in the field next to one of the curing barns. We talked far into the night and counted shooting stars.

I had missed my parents terribly, and had been homesick at times, but I didn't realize then that I would miss this place and would have these wonderful memories for the rest of my life.

MAGGIE'S LAST RIDE

Maggie Buck McClennan's remains arrived from Alaska by United Parcel Service.

Her granddaughter Anne, my wife's cousin, still lives there. Anne, her mother Margaret, and Maggie left Virginia for Alaska soon after the death of Maggie's husband in 1963. We get a Christmas Card from Anne every now and then, and sometimes it includes a short note, but that's the extent of our contact.

When the UPS driver handed us the package that morning, Nancy looked at the label and said:

"What in the world.. ?"

Now anything at all from Anne would have been a surprise, but we were stunned when we removed the wrapping. It was a box about twelve inches square and there was a note taped to the top:

"Dear Nancy, Grandmother always said she wanted to be buried next to Grandfather in Norfolk. I've kept her ashes all these years and it looks like I'll never make it back to the East Coast so I'm dumping them in your lap. Hope this won't be too much of a burden. Thanks, Anne"

"Unbelievable!" I said.

"Not to me, that's just Anne." Nancy replied.

"Do you have any idea where your grandfather's buried?" I asked.

"I know he's somewhere in Norfolk, but I have no idea which cemetery," she replied. Then, with a devilish gleam in her eye, she said: "Why don't we just put Grandmother under the Lilac bush in the backyard?"

No disrespect was intended and the comic relief was just what we needed at the moment. We laughed at the situation and she said: "We really are bad aren't we?"

We finally decided that someday we'd try to find where her grandfather was buried and see what arrangements could be made with the cemetery to have her grandmother's ashes buried near his grave. Meanwhile, we needed a place to store them. We're not overly superstitious, but somehow the idea of keeping human ashes in our house would have been a little spooky.

We were living at the time on what had once been, around the turn of the century, a large produce and vegetable farm. We'd recently moved into the old Victorian house and were in the process of gutting and rebuilding it. There were several outbuildings still standing and one of them had an old root cellar below it. It was certainly deep enough to serve as a temporary crypt, so I suggested we put the ashes down there until we could take them to Norfolk.

A set of stone steps led down to the heavy cellar door. Spiders had spun webs across the walls of the stairway and a really huge spider, the kind that "writes your name" on it's web, was directly in my path. I'm not fond of bugs in general, but I really, really hate spiders. Armed with a long stick I found outside, I returned to the stairway and bravely attacked the webs.

The cellar was dimly lit from a small ray of sunlight shining down the steps and it smelled old and funky inside. The floor was damp and there was a lot of debris and animal scat. There were storage shelves standing against the walls and fortunately they were dry. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, I saw what I thought was an old snakeskin at my feet. This was definitely not the place for me. I quickly sat the box on one of the shelves, closed the door and bolted up the steps. My skin was crawling with imaginary spiders, bugs and snakes.

For several weeks, we regaled our friends with the story of our bizarre UPS delivery. Then the weeks passed into months and we gradually forgot about the ashes in the cellar. Almost two years later, Nan received an invitation to her 40^th high school reunion in Norfolk. That's home to both of us, and though we attended different high schools, we eventually met, fell in love, and were married there.

On a cloudy afternoon a few weeks later, we were packed and about to leave on our five-hour drive to Norfolk, when Nan suddenly remembered the ashes.

"Mike," she said, "I guess we should get Grandmother out of the cellar and take her with us."

"Oh Yeah," I said, "...thats right! I had completely forgotten about them."

I really hadn't, and secretly hoped I'd never have to go down there again. But, keeping my intense dread to myself, I headed for the cellar. Same time of year, same ugly spiders. This time, however, it was an overcast day and when I opened the door, it was pitch black dark inside.

Returning with a flashlight, I shined the beam on the box of ashes. As I reached for them, I dropped the light and was instantly cast into total darkness. Frantically using my foot to feel along the floor, I was relieved to find it just a few feet away. As I reached down to pick it up, I heard a horrible, hissing noise behind me.

The hair on my neck prickled and a shiver tingled down my back. Quickly tightening the loosened end of the flashlight, I turned it back on and shined the beam in the direction of the noise. I saw a pair of glowing, red eyes staring back at me.

Even though the ashes had not magically transformed into grandmother's ghost, the bared teeth of a large possum was menacing enough. In the corner behind her was a nest of kits, and she was ready to defend them against all intruders.

When I returned to the car with the ashes, Nan said:

"Find them O.K. Hon?"

"Yep." I said nonchalantly, "No problem. By the way, there's a cute little mamma possum and a litter of kittens down there."

"Oh!" she said, "I want to see them when we get back!"

(Me and my big mouth), I thought.

Nan's reunion was great fun, and the next day we got out the phone book and looked up the numbers of all the cemeteries in town. The very first cemetery we called said that there was indeed a record of Nan's grandfather, and that he was buried at Forest Lawn on Granby Street.

Mr. Clark was an odd looking little man with large, thick glasses and he peered up from his desk as we entered the Forest Lawn office. We told him who were, who we were looking for and that we had been told the grave was here.

"Well," he said, "if it is, I should have a record of it here in the files."

One entire wall of the cemetery office contained chest high file cabinets, the kind that stores index cards, like those in a library. A few minutes later he said "Here we are, the grave is just a short distance from here. I can walk over there with you if you like."

We were disappointed when we saw the grave had no marker and we resolved to correct the situation on our next trip. Later, back in Mr. Clark's office, we learned that we could leave grandmother's ashes and he would see to the proper disposal. He explained that an auger would drill down almost to the top of grandfather's coffin and a special container for her ashes would be lowered into the hole. The total cost would be only $100.

So, we finally disposed of the ashes and did so with dignity for Nan's grandmother. They were finally at rest after waiting almost thirty years and traveling halfway around the world.....And I would never have to go back into that cellar again. Maybe Nan would forget about the little possums.

RED HOT CHRISTMAS

I used to work in a large, open office and we all looked forward each year to our annual Christmas party. One such party was truly unforgettable to those of us who were there because of a fire that broke out on the top of my desk.

Our Christmas parties were always done "pot luck" and all the ladies had prepared their special holiday goodies. My favorite was the Bourbon Balls- those scrumptious, nutty, cake like treats flavored with a liberal quantity of bourbon.

That year, my desk was chosen as the site of the punch bowl. It sat invitingly in the center of the desk and was decorated with running cedar and mistletoe. Tall, red candles were placed on each side and it was a grand centerpiece for the party.

We had all dressed for the occasion and I had on my red plaid, polyester sports jacket and wore my red "Santa Claus" tie that lit up when I pressed a switch hidden in the pocket.

As we stood around the desk sampling the punch, Christmas carols were playing over the public address system and as we looked outside we could see snowflakes just beginning to fall. How perfect !

Then someone said loudly, "I smell smoke!" I sniffed and said smugly, "No problem, it's just the candles." A second later I felt the heat on my back.

I had leaned backwards while laughing with my friends and one of the candles had ignited the polyester fibers in my jacket causing it to burst into flames.

Thankfully, a quick thinking friend picked up the punch bowl and nearly drowned me as he extinguished the fire with our holiday punch.

Only my dignity suffered injury and we made more punch, but to this day none of them will ever let me forget that Christmas party.