Story Break
Uncle Pudzer Builds A Fire
Q: Hi. Thanks for helping us out with this book. Before we start, do you have anything you’d like to use as an intro?
A: Well, uh, first, most people wonder about my name.
Q: Right.
A: When my parents were on their honeymoon they went camping because they didn’t have much money, and they heard someone talking about citronella. They thought it was a girl’s name, and two words, not just one. They had never heard of it and didn’t know that it was a plant oil used as an insect repellent.
I like it though. While I was growing up I would have a few odd moments at the start of every school year – in grade school, mostly – when my teacher first saw my name, but they got over it. I was embarrassed. A lot. Who wouldn’t be? I hated my name then, really hated it, but as I got older I started to feel special. By then I had a nickname, Sally, but now mostly I go by Citron Ella or just Citron.
In grade school and junior high, and high school I was always Sally. When I got to college I started to become my own person. Nobody knew me, so I changed to Citron. Nobody else has my name. I like that a lot. Now I’m Citron Ella and proud of it. I read somewhere that Ella means “beautiful fairy woman”,” and citron is a wonderful small and delicately-scented fruit, so even if I ever feel a bit like an outsider, I can pretend that I am a woman of magic and wonder from a land of mystery and joy, like any good backpacker.
Q: End of story then?
A: Except that I’m considering names for children, like Dieter for a son, and Ophelia (or Ofelia) for a daughter, and of course their nicknames would be “Deet” and “Offie”.
Q: I understand that you got into backpacking because of your uncle Reiny Pudzer.
A: Yeah. There’s a name. I’m glad I’m a girl so I can’t have a name like Reinhold. I was sort of a tomboy, and he and Aunt Lydia didn’t have any kids, but they he came from a big family and their relatives were thick as flies and all had kids, so he would take all us nieces and nephews out hiking and camping and Aunt Lydia would sit at home in the kitchen and cluck and ruffle her feathers. But we always came back OK.
Q: How old were you when you started?
A: Oh, about eight or so. But we took it easy. Uncle Reiny was pretty good. He’s kind of a funny old guy but he’s nice. Sweet, almost. Kind of prickly on the outside but he has a good soul. Gets flustered sometimes but he’s never mean. Not really. He didn’t push us. We did more as we got older. Mostly it was kind of like an outdoor party.
Q: I understand that sometimes it was actually a birthday party?
A: For sure. I was born on May 30, Memorial Day. It was more of a big deal when I was younger. We used to go to the parade downtown first (small town), and then went out of town a little way to a park after the parade. We kids felt like we were going out to the wilderness. My parents ran the show but Uncle Reiny was sort of a technical advisor.
We ran around a lot and yelled, and ate sloppy joes and had a great time. It was really special. I always thought the parades were for me. I learned better when I got older, and kind of fell off the birthday party wagon somewhere, but the memories are still there. I don’t celebrate my birthday any more, but I have really, really good memories. My parties were the best that any of my friends ever went to, including their own.
Q: What did you do besides birthday parties?
A: Well, it was sort of whatever Uncle Reiny was in the mood for. We camped some, and hiked, and as we got older we did a one-night backpack trip, and then two nights, and so on. Nothing formal. It just happened.
Q: And that’s how you got into backpacking?
A: Sort of, a little at a time. First I’d just carry a goofy beat up old rucksack, and then went through the external-frame pack phase, and then the internal-frame phase, and as I grew up I eventually evolved into a fairly gnarly ultralight backpacker. Now I make most of my own hiking clothes and even my packs and shelters.
Q: How much did your uncle influence all this?
A: Well, if it hadn’t been for him I’m not sure I would have started. I look back on it now and it was all pretty clunky, kind of like trying to build a house out of twigs and shoe box cardboard, but if you’re a kid you don’t care. If you have fun and someone looks out for you and gives you some inspiration and encouragement you can learn on your own when the time comes. It’s the experimenting and playing that are important.
Q: Do you have a story to tell us about the early days?
A: Sure do. I thought I’d tell my “Uncle Pudzer builds a fire” story.
We were stopped for lunch one day early in the spring. We were in our grade school years, and on an exploring hike in Uncle Pudzer’s back lot, which was pretty big and had a lot of trees on it – a small, private forest almost. A couple of us kids decided to build a fire. It looked easy on TV. We got a few sticks, made a pile of them, and sat on the ground rubbing them together.
Uncle came by munching a sandwich and watched us for a few minutes. Finally he finished and while licking the mayonnaise off his fingers he said, “Well, you want a fire then, do you? I can show you if you want. We’ll have one going in a minute. Just watch close now.”
First he moved all our crooked sticks out of the way and told us to clear a patch down to bare earth. All of us started scratching like chickens with our little feet, bumping into each other and sending dry leaves and grass and twigs flying all over.
“OK, OK that won’t do kids,” he said. We were covering up the cleared spots as fast as we were clearing new ones. He got us all to form a ring facing inward and holding hands, and then had us scuff our feet from the middle to the outside. This was fun. We all rotated clockwise together. He had us start singing “Ten boxes of sticks on the wall” and scraping and kicking, and by the time we’d counted down to no boxes of sticks on the wall we had a circle about 10 feet across. It was like a little folk dance with us as tiny peasants.
We had enough room cleared to roast a boar.
“OK, kids,” he said. “You done good there. Now Kenny, you and Bill run and find some tinder for me.” And Kenny ran off, not having any idea what he was looking for. Bill didn’t want to look dumb so he went too, chasing Kenny.
Then he told Albert: “Albert, you get us some nice kindling,” and turned around to me. “You go find my coat on the back porch and get the matches. We’ll need those too. They’re in the top pocket.” Then he sent John to the truck to get a lighter, just in case. He delegated Carrie to find some rocks to make a fire circle. She was only five, and just said “O Kay,” and stood there sucking her thumb.
Albert was still there too. He tried to get Uncle’s attention to ask what kindling was, but Uncle had turned toward the trees. After saying that he’d select some prime wood for our fire, he stood there eyeballing the trees like an art critic. Albert followed him, too shy to make a sound but hoping to catch on. Uncle had forgotten to give Mary Ann anything to do so she followed Albert.
Uncle turned and saw Mary Ann and told her to stay close, so she could learn how to pick the best wood. That’s when he saw Albert and sent him next door to borrow a saw from Mr. Dorfman. “And tell him I hope his leg’s better where the rooster pecked him last week, and I’ll have the saw back tonight. Give my regards to the Missus while you’re at it then.”
Then he looked down and saw Mary Ann waiting to receive her lesson. “Did you get that kindling yet?” he said. “No,” she said, afraid to correct him. “By golly, you got to get hopping then. Look for some little skinny twigs like fat dog whiskers. Now go. Go. Look sharp once,” he said as he patted her on the shoulder and wandered into the trees.
I got to the porch but didn’t find Uncle’s coat. I walked around the outside of house looking up and down but didn’t see it. I knocked at the back door and asked Aunt Lydia if she’d seen Uncle Pudzer’s coat because he was going to show us how to build a fire and we had to have some matches.
“Oh, that dumbhead,” she said. “He’ll just burn us all out. Teaching you kids how to set fires like that. You go run back there and tell him to quit that or I’ll show him what for.” And then she closed the door on me. For a little while I thought about crying. I didn’t want to let anybody down. I was just a little girl.
Back in the woods Albert had returned without a saw. He found Mr. Dorfman who only said “Tell Reiny he’s already got my saw. I loaned it to him about two years ago, and I’d appreciate it if he could find the time to return it. Between him and the damn animals around here I’m about done in. Look out for that rooster on the way out.”
John was back without the lighter. He said the truck was locked.
Carrie was standing in the middle of our fire circle sucking her thumb. Albert and I went looking for rocks. John came along. The only ones we knew of were in Uncle’s gravel driveway so we went out there and filled our pockets. The biggest ones were no bigger than ping pong balls. We were proud. We shared some with Carrie, but she just stood there holding one in each of her tiny hands.
About that time Uncle Pudzer came back out of the trees with an armload of dry branches. “Got that saw yet, Albert?” he said. “No, sir,” said Albert, “He says you borrowed it two years ago and he wants it back.”
“That ornery, so-and-so,” said Uncle Pudzer. “He knows that ain’t right. Here I am trying to teach you kids an important lesson and he’s playin’ tricks on us. Do I have to do all this myself? Well no never-mind. We can break these sticks up ourselves, you watch. Carrie, did you get some rocks, what are those things there, you call those rocks?”
Carrie looked down and started to cry. Uncle Pudzer looked at her for a minute, then at us. Then he said “Oh, by golly wait a minute. Look at all those rocks you got! You done real good there Carrie! I missed ’em the first time. You’re my real favorite little sweetheart, you are!” He knelt and hugged her and whispered something and she stopped crying.
“Carrie’s got the prettiest rocks. She’s my little sweetie. She done good, she did. We’ll build our pretty fire on them, but we need some big ugly rocks to make a circle and hold the fire in. You kids go get some ugly rocks. You can do that, so scram now. Carrie, you stay right here and watch these rocks for us, OK? You make sure these pretty ones don’t get away now, OK?” Carrie nodded, happy again.
Albert and I ran off to find more rocks.
We discovered what we needed out at the front of the house, around Aunt Lydia’s flower bed. Grapefruit-sized rocks. Big heavy ones. Ugly ones. One by one we picked them up and carried them deep into the back yard where our fire circle was. After ten or so trips we had enough, and made a nice circle with them, filling the inside of the ring with the gravel we’d gotten earlier.
We now had a paved fire ring.
Uncle Pudzer emerged from the woods with another armload of firewood. “Sally,” he said “where’s those matches now?” I told him I couldn’t find his jacket. “Seven of you out here and you can’t find one jacket! Boy oh boy kids these days.” He raised his bushy eyebrows at us and then frowned. “It looks just like this,” he said, grabbing the sides of the jacket he was wearing and flapping it at us. Then he reached into the breast pocket and handed me a book of matches. “Ach, you kids,” he said. “Now don’t lose these. We’re gonna need these, you hear?”
“Johnny, you get that lighter yet? We might need that one.” John shook his head. “I tried but the truck was locked,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He looked at me and then hung his head. I put the matches into my pants pocket where they wouldn’t get lost. “Jesus was a patient man,” Uncle Pudzer muttered. “Try to remember that.” Everyone was quiet for a moment. We all looked at each other. The early spring dusk began to edge in on our afternoon. We didn’t know what he had meant by that. We weren’t sure what was going to happen next.
Then we seemed to hear voices. Out in the woods somewhere. Faintly calling for help. Mary Ann stumbled out of the trees behind a ball of twigs as big as she was. She dumped them onto the ground and smiled. “I’m hungry,” she said, “Can we eat now?”
The voices kept calling in the distance. I turned and looked back toward house, which was far off toward the front of the lot. I thought I saw Aunt Lydia looking out of the kitchen window, but I wasn’t sure, it was so far. We felt almost lost in the deep wilderness way back here.
“Now which one of you is missing?” said Uncle. Then he counted us and came up short by two. Kenny and Bill were out there looking for tinder, whatever that was. He caught on. “Must be those two boys. What in hell are they doing out there?” he said. “You kids stay right here while I go find them. Don’t move now. I’ll be right back and then we’ll have some fun.”
He took a step back and tripped on our rocks. He sat down hard in the middle of our fire ring and fell backward over the rocks on the other side. “Damn, damn, damn!” he said, “What I sacrifice for our youth! I tell you this ought to start getting a whole lot better pretty darn soon now! I’m not gettin’ any younger here. Damn that hurts!”
We weren’t sure what to do. Carrie looked like she might start crying again. I thought I might too. Uncle rubbed his back and kneeled down by her again. “Carrie, you’re my sweetheart,” he said, “I’ll be back in a minute now. You look after these kids and I’ll be right back, OK? Then we’ll have some fun, OK?” Then he kissed her on the cheek and headed off into the trees, looking for Kenny and Bill, who were calling louder now.
“I’m hungry,” said Carrie, and went back to sucking her thumb.
In a few minutes Uncle Pudzer returned with the two boys. They both had their pockets stuffed with dry leaves, dry moss, and last year’s cattail heads, those big puffy sausages that explode like clouds of cotton lint when you bend them. Between the two of them they had gathered lots of tinder without knowing for sure what it was, and had a full load of it.
Their only problem had been getting a little too close to the duck pond in the far corner of the lot and sinking up to their knees in muck. In trying to get free they’d fallen down a few times and were pretty well covered in goo, but they’d found what they were sent for. Uncle Pudzer had suffered the same fate in pulling them out, and was wet up to his knees as well, and had muck on his elbows. He returned with a boy under each arm, and set them down carefully.
Then he set us to breaking up the firewood he’d gathered. We used Bill and Kenny’s tinder and a small part of Mary Ann’s lifetime supply of kindling. Uncle Pudzer constructed his fire as carefully as a priest building his first temple. When he said “OK” and asked for the matches I pulled them out of my pocket and handed them over. At least that part worked out OK. I had kept them safe. We were ready.
But Uncle still wasn’t quite satisfied. He wanted this to be a one-match fire. He wanted to show us how it should be done. He wanted to impress us. He wanted magic for us. He walked around the pile of tinder, kindling and sticks eyeballing it from all sides, touching it here and there, adding or removing a stick or wisp of fuzz until it was just right. Night was near. He returned to the spot he had started from. We were all getting really hungry by now.
Then he asked me for the matches.
I told him I had already handed them over. “What?” he said, “When was that?” “A minute ago. When you said ‘OK,’” I said. “Then you did some more with the fire. I didn’t see them again.” A couple of the boys backed me up. We traded glances. We weren’t sure how we were going to get out of this lesson. It was nearly supper time by now and our parents would be looking for us. This wasn’t really fun anymore.
Uncle Pudzer just stood there. “OK, nobody move,” he said. “You all look down at the ground. That book of matches has gotta be here real close. You all just look down and you’ll see it.” But we didn’t. He had us get down on our hands and knees and feel around in the grass for the matches but we couldn’t locate them. They were just gone.
While we were hunting in the gloom we heard Aunt Lydia’s voice, nearby. “What the heck is going on out here?” she said, “What are you doing with them kids now? I thought you had your heart set on burning the forest down, so where’s that fire now? It’s getting cold out here. Everybody’s hungry.”
Uncle Pudzer just shrugged and mumbled something. He looked down at the unlit fire and shrugged again, lifting his hands palms up. “I don’t know. Maybe we should try this some other time,” he said, as he took a step back as if to get a better view of this mess. His failed lesson. His sorry evening mess. Then he put his hands on his hips and hung his head for a second as if in thought.
Before you could say “Whoops!” he bent over and picked up the book of matches, which he had been standing on. “OK, kids, now watch,” he said with a big grin. “We’re gonna do it this time!” He knelt on one knee, struck a match, and carefully poked it into the bottom of his little temple of twigs.
Something in there caught fire, then something else, and something else again. In a second or two we had a teeny campfire. In 10 seconds we had a tiny campfire, and in 30 seconds the whole thing was ablaze. We were so happy that we were jumping up and down. Yay! Yay! Even Carrie, who pulled the thumb out of her mouth and clapped hands with a big smile on her face.
“Ach, you dumbhead,” said Aunt Lydia, “You’re always doing that. You should learn once.” Then we noticed that she had brought a tray with her. Full of sloppy joes. The same very good, very special food that we had at all my birthday parties. She had been in the kitchen reminding herself out loud what a big dumb man she had married, and knowing that his little lesson would take all afternoon, and had prepared supper for us all, in case we didn’t kill ourselves first, and in case we were still hungry.
And we were.
As Uncle Pudzer lovingly tended his fire, he held Carrie on his lap while she ate. He hugged her and kissed her cheek. The rest of us sat around the fire and ate. In a few minutes Aunt Lydia returned with a bag of marshmallows which we roasted for dessert.
After we were all done, Uncle Pudzer showed us how to put out the fire, and we carried everything back to the house.
He and Aunt Lydia stood out front and said good night to us as we all headed for home. All our parents would be worried, or mad, or both, but things had turned out very well after all.
As I walked toward home, as Uncle Pudzer’s house was disappearing in the gloom I heard Aunt Lydia say “What the hell happened to my flower garden, there? Where did my rocks go?” But I didn’t go back to explain. Uncle would know how to handle it. He could handle anything.