The Barbeque Challenge

In my eight year old mind the ordeal lasted hours. When panic sets in, seconds become minutes, minutes become hours which can soon turn into overnight. In this case it was still daylight when someone finally saved me. So, as to not exaggerate beyond customary norms when I retell it, I say hours. And folks can then infer it was more likely an hour or less, maybe even only minutes. The panic was real regardless of how long I suffered.

It was the fall of 1960. My family had recently settled on Augusta Street in Bethesda, Maryland. If memory serves, we moved there in spring of that year. I had plenty of time to make friends and engage in all sorts of outdoor summer adventures. The two friends I remember to this day was Jimmy, "Can't remember his last name" and Chuckie Doyle. All of us lived on Augusta St. It was a natural bond formed out of geographical and equal age conveniences.

It was on Augusta Street I first learned the rules of playing in the street and what the territorial limit of my wanderings from home were. When a car came, someone yelled, "Car" and as if Moses had just parted the Red Sea, the gaggle of dirt encrusted little tackers would step to the side and let the car pass. And I was allowed to wander as far as Mom's voice could travel. Life was beautiful. I had a grand time that summer.

One of our favorite games was Follow the Leader. Each time, Chuckie, Jimmy or myself would try to outdo each other by pushing our path into increasingly dangerous scenarios. Sometimes it was a tree we climbed. Sometimes a wall to walk on. The choices became more risky and less sane each time we played.

The more we played, the harder to find new challenges became. But it seemed each time; one of us would finally find a dare the other two were not interested in. That day's game was then over and a victor declared.

I cannot remember who was first with the Barbeque Challenge. I am guessing it was Chuckie. He was the craziest of our trio. Plus he was skin and bones, while Jimmy and I favored the chunkier, but ever popular Russian Peasant body style. He knew if anyone could meet this challenge, he could. He was skinny and had the right mindset.

In our travels and investigations of the backyards in our neighborhood, one yard had a very nice natural stone barbeque set up. The grill was huge and the chimney stack was a good size, maybe five feet high. It did not take long to include that barbeque into our regular follow the leader challenges.

At first I am sure it was all about climbing the chimney and standing on top. Once we had all manned up and successfully climbed up, stood up, and then climbed down, there was nothing to do with that barbeque. But then Chuckie noticed the opening of the flue. He looked at it one way from the top. He climbed down and looked at it from the bottom. Satisfied he could make it, he climbed into the fire pit and into the flue.

I imagine Jimmy and I were shocked and wowed when he popped out of the top covered in soot. We most likely said something like, "That was so cool." Chuckie definitely won that day's contest. Eventually Jimmy and myself found the courage to try it and the barbecue became just one of the mandatory obstacles we incorporated into our version of "Follow the Leader". It became so mundane, we even began going down the flue and out of the fire pit. No other kid in the neighborhood would try it. We were bad ass.

Fast forward to the fall. The advancing cold weather drove any thought of barbeque adventures from our minds. That yard quickly became just a connector to the best walking route to school. And the walking route to school quickly became an unpleasant journey of heel scuffing drudgery, especially as the temperature sought lower temps day in and day out.

I remember the day of my ordeal well. It was a rare warm fall day. I was walking home alone. Like every other day I walked home from school, I began to cross the backyard where the barbeque resided. It all gets somewhat hazy at this point.

I remember looking at the barbeque and thinking I ought to climb down the chimney just for old times’ sake. And I proceeded to do just that. Unfortunately I failed to appreciate I was not wearing summer shorts and Tee shirt. I was bundled up in jeans, long flannel shirt and a zip up jacket with a hood. I had become too big to fit down the flue. Just past my waist with my head down was when I realized the ugliness looming in my future.

I have endured moments of panic here and there as an adult. But no panic is more impactful I think than the panic of a child. As soon as I became too wedged to move, I knew I was screwed. And of course my next reaction was to scream and scream loudly. Unfortunately, my screams had to make it down the rest of the flue before the sound of my panic made it out into the light of day.

The older kid who finally found me said later I was lucky he heard my pitiful sobs. All I remember is his laughter and after an eternity, him asking, "Where do you live kid?' I told him and he ran to my house to fetch my mom. It was only after he ran to get her that I remembered she was probably still at work at a department store nearby. My panic level spiked even more.

As luck would have it, Mom had clocked out early at Woodies and she was home. While it felt like forever, she probably was at the chimney in a few minutes. Any notion I had that I was being saved because she loved me went out the window as soon as she opened her mouth. 

"How the Hell did you get in there?" and, “Christ on a crutch Mike, what gave you impression this was a good idea?” The verbal rebuke never stopped as she and the kid struggled to extricate me from the chimney.

Once I had been yanked out and was sitting on the ground rubbing skinned hands and knees, Mom began to laugh. The kid began to laugh also.

I did not laugh. I was just thankful the nightmare was over

_________________________

Keep it 'tween the ditches ...................................