The Best Book Burning I've Ever Attended

When we lived in the country, I often found myself in surprising situations. I had been raised in the suburbs of a small city and my experiences were very middle class, middle-American experiences. So, perhaps those surprising situations were merely surprising to me and probably ordinary to those people who'd lived in the country all their lives, such as:

• It was status quo to own at least one gun and to fire it regularly.
• Many people, particularly men, dipped snuff.
• If someone was in trouble, stranger or no, you got off your ass and helped them.
• Racially insensitive remarks were acceptable in polite conversation.
• It was not unusual to buy a six pack of beer and crack one open on the way home.
• If three or more people are together, a nice roaring bon fire is called for.

These things became ordinary for me too, though I never could get used to the racism. In fact, when my good friend called Martin Luther King, Jr. the n-word, I began my protest campaign. The racist talk stopped after a few of my interventions. Well, at least it stopped happening around me. Please know, though that these folks I knew and spent my time with, regardless of their politics, were truly nice people and fun to be around, for the most part.

When the weekends would roll around, we'd find out from Matt who was going to be where and we headed that way. One fall evening, we were invited to our friends Jamie and April's home for a bon fire. Jamie and April lived in one of a pair of trailers that sat high up on a hill in the woods. Their gravel driveway was very steep and almost unreachable without a four-wheel drive during the winter or when it was very rainy. It was a cozy setting and their home was always warm and welcoming.

When Doc and I arrived that night, it was very dark and chilly. There were already many cars parked on the driveway. We found a place to park and made our way over to the bon fire they were having to the side of the house near the shed. I found April sitting in a folding lawn chair sorting through a box. April is a petite little firecracker of a gal. She is very sweet when she is sober, which is most of the time, but steer clear of her if she'd had a few to many and a bone to pick. This evening, though, she was her true sweet self.

I greeted her and took the folding chair next to her. "What have you got there?" I asked her.

"Oh, a box of books," she said and began to pitch them two at a time on the bon fire.

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, my eyebrows nearly leaped off my forehead in shock. She's burning books! Never had I seen a book treated so disrespectfully outside of the movies or TV. Books are treasures to me and I was truly gobsmacked by what I'd just seen her do. I had definately just found myself in a surprising situation again and I was very unnerved. I had visions of Nazi's throwing books onto a fire and sieg heil-ing each other like crazy.

"Yeah," she said, "We cleared out a bunch of stuff from Jamie's parent's house and we found a bunch of these books no one wanted so we're going to burn them." Obviously, she didn't realize the historic implications of what she was doing or the trauma she was causing me.

"Ah," I said, still wary. I began to feel my self-righteousness stirring and began to form a lecture in my head about how books are gateways to other worlds and they bring us new ideas to stretch our minds and that books are sacred and should be treated with respect and so on and so forth. I was just beginning to take a deep breath and start my tirade, when I paused. Perhaps, I thought to myself, I ought to try a more diplomatic approach.

"Can I look through those before you burn them? I like to read and I'd be glad to take some off of your hands for you."

"Sure," she said, "Help yourself."

So I did. I reached in and pulled out a handful of books. I tilted their covers toward the light coming off the bon fire. The first book I looked at was a romance novel, a real bodice-ripper. The next one: a Reader's Digest volume of condensed books. The rest were more of the same. All of them were musty and made my nose quiver with anticipated sneezes.

My self-righteous anger began to cool and my sense of purpose awoke. Now, I have nothing really against romance novels. I've read them and they are a bit of a lark. But, if you've read one, you've probably read them all. Especially these old and tired looking ones. Certainly, I did not want to keep any for myself and I decided that the heat they'd provide us by being burned on such a great bon fire would far outpace the heat they'd generate in anyone's imagination. And Reader's Digest condensed books are almost unholy to me. I mean, I understand that some people aren't devoted readers and would rather not spend a lot of time getting to whatever point the author is trying to make. But, come on! How hard is it to get through a goddamn Grisham book?

"Here," I said, "Let me help you."

I took the books that I had in my hands and pitched them into the fire. And reached down for more. We pitched those books into the fire merrily and watched the blaze grow to ten or fifteen feet as we chatted amiably about other things. Box after box of pulpy trash and abridged travesties sizzled in this great bon fire, which drove away the autumn chill and lit our faces with a golden glow.

Later, when I reunited with Doc, we both shared our experience of being at first horrified by what we saw and satisfied in our participation in the act of burning these particular books. We agreed with each other: Some books are only worth their weight in fuel.