A lifetime of campfires

Mike VanBuren column from the mid-November issue:

    A man’s life can be measured in the glow of campfires.  At least that’s the way it has been for me.
     I first gathered around the soothing flames while still a boy—during family campouts at Interlochen State Park—where we fellowshipped regularly with friends and relatives who made the trek north each July.
     Back home, the neighbor kids and I could often be found on summer nights building campfires in the hills behind our home, a rite-of passage that included sipping root beer from gallon jugs, exploring dark woodlots in the moonlight and sleeping soundly in canvas pup tents, or in bags rolled out under the stars.
     “The fire is the main comfort of the camp—whether in summer or winter—and is about as ample at one season as at another,” wrote Henry David Thoreau.  “It is as well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness.”
    That’s probably one reason our Native American brethren have traditionally gathered around fire circles to talk and listen to the wisdom of others.
     For much of my childhood and into my adult life, I have collected wisdom from campfire conversations.  For many years, it was an Independence Day ritual for family and friends to gather around a blazing social fire built in the gravel driveway—and later in the patio fire pit—of our rural home.
     We children would listen to the conversations of our parents and their friends, learning important life lessons passed down through stories and good-natured laughter.
     “Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people,” observed Garrison Keillor of Minnesota Public Radio’s A Prairie Home Companion.
     Gentleness and quiet wisdom seem to have always been hallmarks of the campfires that I sat around.  As I grew older, I carried those benefits with me.
     Among my best memories are the roaring campfires shared with friends and family in  various locations throughout northern and southern Michigan.
     Elsewhere, I have basked in their warmth and light in the national forests of Arizona, with young Dutch tourists on a cold September evening in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park and in front of a crackling fireplace at a small log cabin in the ghost town of Tincup, Colorado.
     During my early college years, there were large group gatherings  in Allegan Forest and on the beaches of Lake Michigan.  And my good friend and ex-roommate from Central Michigan University still joins me for regular spring and fall excursions—including twice on the south shore of Beaver Island—that would be incomplete without campfire philosophy.
    Firelight was even an integral part of my courtship years and a delight at the wedding reception.  And my own kids were raised on campfires and smores during 20-plus years of August camping trips to the state park near our house.
   Many gatherings with my acoustic musician friends over the years have included singing to the accompaniment of guitars, banjos and mandolins in the flickering shadows of a friendly campfire.
     I treasure these memories and hope to make even more of them before my days are done.
     George Bernard Shaw said that “life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire again every time a child is born.”
     It’s somehow comforting to know that—when the embers of my life are finally extinguished with a dash of cold water and a whiff of white smoke—another boy will come along and seek wisdom in the stories and laughter of a thousand campfires.