Searching for fire

Dear Judy and Becky,

Remember the time Dad had trouble starting the barbecue grill? I thought about that last night.

I decided we would have barbecued hamburgers for dinner, the first of the season. Since we're down to the just to two of us we have a little round table-top grill. I found it by the garage door and carried it to the patio table where I blew off the dust, swiped off the cobwebs, removed the lid and piled in some briquettes.

There is something about cooking over a fire that warms my innards and brings out the Pioneer Woman in me. I can understand why the cavemen were so thrilled when they discovered fire and learned that haunch of dinosaur tastes much better cooked than eaten blood-raw.

The grill was ready and just needed fire. So easy a caveman can do it. Ha! The next hour was spent trying to make fire. There are no matches in my house. I looked in every drawer, cupboard, room, and closet. There are also no matches in the garage.

Undaunted, I decided to use my old spaghetti trick. Long, thin spaghetti noodles work great to light those hard-to-reach places like water heater pilot lights and candles hunkered down deep in containers.

It was easy lighting the noodles on the gas stove but ferrying the flame to the grill on the patio was another story. Flutter, fizzle, out. Over and over again, the flame died before I got to the door. I tried walking slowly, carefully. Didn't work. I put the lighted end into a mug and that worked well, until I moved it from the mug toward the briquettes and Mister Wind swooped down to see what was happening.

Noodles were out so I wadded up a hunk of newspaper and rashly put it into the gas flame. Whoosh! Baby, we had fire! I raced to the patio door, dripping ash, only to have it flutter to an end before I got to the grill.

By now I had made at least 15 trips from the kitchen to the patio and nary a wisp of smoke was coming from the stupid grill. And that reminded me of Dad and the time he went through such turmoil starting the barbecue so we could feast for mom's 60th birthday. (If you'll remember that was the year we gave her the milk goat -- what a present!)

Dad finally marched to the shop and came out a few minutes later wearing a welder's helmet and dragging his acetylene welder. He fired that thing up and, by Jove, he got those briquettes lit. Of course he also burned out the bottom of the barbecue, which fell in a smoldering mess onto the lawn.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a welder. But about the time I was ready to call it quits my knight in shining armor drove up from a wearying day at the office. After listening to my tale of woe he only had one comment: "Why didn't you just use the little portable gas grill?"

What? What gas grill?

How could I forget the little grill we bought last summer? Maybe because my brain cells are over 60? Maybe because we only used it once so it wasn't yet a part of the family?

Troy had the burgers sizzling in less than five minutes while I wrote MATCHES on the grocery list. And I have to tell you, my heart was as warm as those burgers, as I remembered Dad's antics that day.