Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
As I grew older and was given more responsibilities, I learned to love the incinerator, especially at Christmas. Feeding this beast with Christmas boxes and wrapping paper was fun, but the real thrill was cutting off branches from a “dead” tree and shoving it in the beast’s mouth! Our incinerator was named “Ol’ Smokey”.
Starting when I was 10, I had the chore of burning the tree (under Dad’s supervision). When I was 13, Dad thought I would be OK doing the deed on my own, so he left the area. Little did he know that I had a plan to put as many branches into the beast as possible.
I opened the incinerator door, which was already filled with flames, and rapidly placed four more dried Christmas tree branches inside. I closed the door with a shovel, since the iron door was almost red hot.
Suddenly, I looked up, and flames were shooting out the top of ol’ Smokey about five to six feet into the air. Oh my, what have I done? The fire kept getting taller and taller, the iron door was now glowing red, and the top of the incinerator was bright red.
Using my underdeveloped pea brain, I ran for the garden hose and quickly sprayed the top of the incinerator, causing hot water to run down the side of the concrete from which the device was formed. Steam poured off the cement walls of the incinerator, making it look like I was sending smoke signals to the other neighbor kids.
I heard three quick snaps in succession and then saw the side of the incinerator with two large cracks running vertically about 18″ long and one more going right down the front of Ol’ Smokey; this would be hard to hide!
OMG, I killed the incenerator. Dad saw the smoke, steam, and flames shooting into the sky from inside the house where he was watching TV. He came running.
He asked what I was doing, and with my most innocent voice, I said, “I was in a hurry because I wanted to be in the house with you and Mom!”
Dad was no dummy, a thirteen-year-old wanting to a) be inside and b) with his parents? Nope, that never would happen.
There will be a hot time in the old town tonight!!
Old Smokey kept being used after I attempted to burn down the neighborhood, but Dad’s admonishment to feed it slowly was always in the back of my mind (I was lucky Dad’s words weren’t indelibly marked on my rear end!) We wrapped the incinerator in steel wire to prevent it from falling apart due to the newly formed cracks. We used it for another nine months before its demise (caused by the city ordinance, not me!)
Backyard incinerators were banned in Los Angeles County on October 1, 1957, as a significant step in combating severe smog, according to the LAist and the San Bernardino Sun. This ban on residential trash burning, following public approval of municipal garbage collection, significantly reduced pollution, though it initially faced public protest.
Today the ol’ buzzard turns 81 (at 4:31 pm). Sometimes I wonder how I made it all these years doing things like filling Old Smokey with dead Christmas tree limbs.
Of course, we made our coffee and headed to the office to do paperwork, a never-ending activity. While sorting through the paperwork, Mary told me of her dream last night. It seems she and the Grinch were at a party and got carried away?!
Mary and the Grinch thought they saw a fire in the Christmas tree. (It was a dream!)
