Play-Doh In The Toaster; Jell-O In The Microwave

Aug 26, 1991

Robert Fulghum

In this second of five excerpts, Seattle author Robert Fulghum discusses combustion - of all kinds. The excerpts come from his latest book, "Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator"(Villard).

For several children in our neighborhood, this is that very special summer between their seventh and eighth year - between first and second grade. They have been to school. And they have been out in the world for a while on their own five days a week - walking home from school.

The age of exploration has come. And they have explored every inch of their environment at home when their parents weren't looking: scouting out the attic, garage, closets, bureau drawers, purses and wallets, and the glove compartments of cars. They have played what-would-happen-if? with electric appliances, and can tell you what becomes of Play-Doh in the toaster, how far away from the house the stereo can be heard if it is turned full volume, and what the microwave does to Jell-O if you leave it in long enough. Throw in some baseball cards, the daily walk to the corner store, a little minor theft, and it's summertime.

A fine summer. Daring - pushing the edge. Daily, they wander off a little farther into the neighborhood than their parents allow - crossing streets they should not cross, throwing rocks at dogs and cats, going through alleys instead of along front sidewalks. Up on roofs and up in trees, down in basements, into neighbors' houses and out in rowboats. It is the summer of mischief and the crossing of forbidden frontiers. Far more independent and adventuresome and curious and courageous than their parents realize or want to remember.

Last week I saw three of these kids hiding in the bushes up by the road with their bathing suits on. Shouting, they would leap out of the bushes, drop their shorts to moon passing cars and then run into the nearest back yard to fall on the ground, shrieking and laughing at their bravado and their defiance of taboos. Nothing more daring - nothing more hilarious - than to wave their small white butts at the passing traffic and run for cover.

To them, I am only "Old Fulghum" - harmless enough, even though they know I know what they're up to because I'm around during the day and come and go unpredictably, unlike their parents, most of whom are at work. I mind my business, and they mind theirs. We have an unspoken nonintervention pact. This week they are playing with fire.

In a vacant lot, with boxes of wooden matches and a roll of toilet paper. Burning one sheet at a time and watching the flaming ash rise in the air and float away. Entranced. Fascinated. Playing with fire - taunting danger. As I watch them, I hear no laughter - this is a serious event.

When I was teaching art in a high school, I held a high card in my teacher's deck that I always saved to deal in the doldrums of late spring when learning had dropped to a minimal level and the daily classroom experience was mostly an exercise in crowd control. My ace in the hole. Fire.

We had Fire Day.

Each student was issued a full box of wooden matches and an electric glue gun, and was required to use every match to build a structure of some sort - something creative. The assignment was to see how large a construction could be built from one box of matches. Prizes for the highest, longest, most aesthetically pleasing, plus a booby prize for the stupidest contraption. There was always a lot of competition for the booby prize.

The following day we would carry the creations out behind the gymnasium, and there on the rubbly, dry ground in back of the gym, the sculptural masterpieces would be set afire, one at a time. We watched, hypnotized, as matter turned to energy - as what was something became nothing. As what had started out as imagination and became substance was

changed into memory.

On one occasion we accidentally set fire to the dry grass and leaves around us. Somebody in the school office saw the smoke and both called the fire department and set off the school fire alarms. The whole school turned out to see what was burning. It was hard explaining the educational aspects of the project to the firemen. For the students, having a fire drill as the climax of Fire Day was a maximum event.

When asked to evaluate the course, Fire Day was high on the students' list of successful educational projects. This primitive and ritualistic handling of a taboo buried so deep in their genetic wiring was difficult to express in words. The inelegance of their writing was balanced by the fiery intensity of feelings expressed in their papers. I explained that they were - and the whole of existence was - fire-born.

Life is - and we are - byproducts of combustion. Imagination turned to form and, finally, memory. This whole world once was fire. A flaming ball of molten rock. Lava. The whole thing. The ultimate ecological disaster. And still it is on fire - at the center of the Earth, far beneath our feet, the fire rages on.

The big bang that birthed us - that was fire.

And we are told, by scientist and religious prophet alike, that the Big Bang that ends us is also fire. Next time.

Fire may be a no-no to 7-year-old, but it is Yes-Yes to life itself.

I spent an evening focused on fireflies recently. Sitting in a wicker chair on the high bank about a hundred feet above the Pai River in the north of Thailand, near the Burma border. Early evening, sometime in January 1990, and maybe on a Sunday. My vagueness is due to being a long way from urban Western civilization for several weeks, and having lost track of time. Which is what I came to do.

No television, no radio, no newspapers, no telephones, no fax machines. UPS doesn't even deliver there. Not much to do at night but sit still and smoke cheap Thai cigars (60 for about 10 cents) and sip some Singha beer and watch fireflies. Not very exciting. Which is great if the last thing you want in the world at the moment is excitement.

The tree in front of me was full of fireflies - as though somebody had overdone it and put too many little tiny white lights on a Christmas tree. And, I kid you not, the fireflies were doing synchronized flashing. All together. On. Off. On. Off. My Thai host said they were all males "calling out for love."

One of these little flashers landed on my pillow when I went to bed. So I put a water glass over him and watched him up close. And wondered:

Just how much control does a firefly have over his stern light?

Could one be trained to do Morse code and be worked into a flea-circus act?

Does a firefly ever attract teeny-tiny moths?

Is his light like the stars and always there, only we can't see it in the daylight?

Does the firefly enjoy getting turned on, or is it more like having hiccups - just an urgent, involuntary spasm?

Do fireflies come with different wattage, like light bulbs?

Do firefly bulbs burn out, leaving old fireflies to wander around in the dark, unnoticed and unloved?

What might it be like if we humans were similarly equipped? What kind of pants would we have to wear?

I know some people who give off a lot of light. Because they have absorbed a lot of light themselves. They shine. This is not the kind of light you can actually see with your eyes, of course. But there are lots of parts of the spectrum of light we can't see. We experience the results of its existence. It takes a different kind of looking.

To look this way is to see.

To see is to have vision.

To have vision is to understand.

To understand is to know.

To know is to become.

To become is to live fully.

To live fully is to matter.

And to matter is to become light.

And to become light is to be loved.

And to be loved is to burn.

And to burn is to exist.

Off and on.

Maybe the fireflies are on to something.