and buns!
(from my favorite little beach cabin in castine, maine.)
funny story….when i was eight or maybe nine we had our own little rustic beach cabin that my dad built on pirates cove in grapeview, washington. we spent the summers exploring the secret world of crabs and starfish at low tide and rowing past this really creepy house where a "witch" lived at high tide. when the sun would go down, we would have big bonfires with all the other cabin people. one time the neighbor boy dipped his marshmallow into the heart of the fire. he pulled it out quickly in a panic and started swinging the flaming sugar ball back and forth, around in circles, trying desperately to put the fire out and save it from a blackened death. suddenly, the burning ball launched off his stick, flew through the air and landed right on my dad's crotch! it stuck and my dad screamed like a girl. then he ran down the beach and leaped into the cold salty bay fully clothed in the moonlight. i have never seen him move that fast before or since. come to think of it, i've never really heard my mom laugh quite like that before or since either. my poor dad was one man in a house full of girls, and we would never understand the panic and terror he felt that night. we would just laugh and tell the story again and again.
(p.s.-this is the perfect story to tell pre-adolescent boys when they are flinging marshmallow and sticks around your face at a bonfire, it calms them right down.)