Above and Beyond

Having never been a drinker or a smoker, I should have been a monk – leading the ascetic life. My addictions have always been speed and heights. Unfortunately, either one can get you killed.

When I was about a junior in high school, for example, I can remember riding down Highway 49, between Wiggins and Gulfport, perched on the fender of a 1951 V-8 Ford, with my feet braced against the bumper and holding on to the hood ornament, doing about 90 miles an hour. With each bump in the pavement, I would bounce up and down. They say the Good Lord looks after children and fools, so I guess I had double coverage. I should have been in school that day.

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Along about my senior year, my buddy and I were speeding down Highway 11 just south of Purvis, and the Highway Patrol got after us. I turned off at Talawah, went the back roads, and came back on 11 at Seneca, just above Lumberton, thinking I had evaded the Law. The highway patrolman was sitting there, however, waiting for us, with a smirk and a “you’re so dumb” look on his face.” I really should have been in school that morning. We were what passed for “bad” in those days; today, what we did wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow.

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So much for speed. When I finally graduated high school, I had to wait a few months to get a seat in Navy bootcamp at San Diego, so I got a job with the Mississippi Forestry Service, putting out woods’ fires all over Lamar and Marion counties. What attracted me to that job was that I was able to drive the Caterpillar that we hauled around to plow fire lanes, but, more importantly, it routinely involved climbing the fire towers at Hub and on the Purvis-Oloh Road. I had already been climbing them for the view when no one was looking. This just made it official.

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Our Cat and the truck that carried it were mismatched, with the tracks of the tractor hanging off either side of the truck, making it a challenge to load and unload. Thinking back, this was probably a metaphor for our whole operation. For example, our two-way radios were basically line of sight, and we often had to stop and borrow a telephone to check in with the tower. When we got to a fire, we sometimes had to deal with a farmer who had set the fire himself and was in no hurry for us to put it out. This could be a problem, especially if the fire crossed over into someone else’s property or if there was a burning ban in effect in the first place. I’ve read that President Trump said that the current forest fires out west were caused by a “lack of raking” (forest mismanagement). I’m still processing that.