Campfires in the Sky

Please keep the Campfires burning until I get there

Please keep the Campfires burning until I get there.

Before I share my Collection of Campfire Stories, I’ll explain the title. Back when my son Jed began dying of cancer at age 29; we were both looking out the hospital window into the Great Beyond of the dark Utah night; pondering infinity, mortality, and the incredible number of stars above.

I suggested to him that perhaps the millions of shining stars we were looking at weren’t only stars; maybe they were also the Campfires in the Sky that the dearly departed sat around each evening while telling the tales of their lives.

I asked him to save me a seat by the fire.

In preparation for that possible star-bound journey it seems prudent for me to practice telling my own Campfire Stories.

While all my tales are disturbingly true, I have rounded off some of the dialogue to make it flow easier.

A few of the names and locations have been changed to protect both the innocent, and the guilty. Others have not been changed at all. We’ll leave the correctness of those decisions to the lawyers.

Speaking of Correctness – Be forewarned: I guarantee all my stories contain something that will offend someone, somewhere, sometime. Hell, large parts of my own life have offended me from time to time! But that doesn’t mean those stories shouldn’t be told.

What follows are a series of Campfires in the Sky stories, best told while roasting marshmallows and drinking good wine with your friends.

ONE - Daddy Dearest

I don’t mean to make my father out as the world’s worst human being, but my first memory of life on god’s green earth doesn’t help his cause very much. I promise to redeem him later, but this is exactly how he created the first memory of my life.

My Dad, birth name Giuseppe, was 5 foot 11 inches tall, 210 pounds of solid muscle; built like the stocky Italian athlete and the hard-working bricklayer he was.

At age 34, in 1948, two years back from WWII; he moved our family from Brooklyn, NY up to a small rural New England township in Connecticut. There he began building a new brick house for us to live in. The family consisted of me, my twin sister Carole, and my Mother Connie.

Mother had gone back to the city by train to take care of some loose ends; leaving Big Daddy alone and in charge of the twins for a few days.

I have no concept of any time before this event, which likely took place early in my second year of life. At that point I was probably a normal 2-year-old who wore diapers and was being strongly encouraged to use the toilet. Apparently, I hadn’t mastered the task yet, because I had just dropped a large Duce in my diaper.

Obviously, that was one dump too many for Big Daddy, who was very stressed out trying to watch the Twins by himself while mixing cement and laying bricks – all at the same time.

So, my first memory of life on this earth; is of a very large man in a white strapped tee-shirt with an amazingly dark tan; grabbing my right forearm and putting my entire tiny hand all the way up to the wrist, completely inside his mouth.

He clamped his massive bright white teeth down on my little baby wrist like a bear trap. Then releasing me, he yelled in my face “If you shit your diaper one more time, I’m gonna bite your hand clean off.”

I still have two hands today, so I must have complied with his command.

Or maybe after that incident I didn’t poop for several months??!

Did this first memory permanently scar my psyche for life? Did it leave me wary?

Let’s just say that when I hear someone make the comment: “Oh, don’t worry. He won’t bite.”

I’m not so damn sure!!

TWO S & M Bondage – The Early Years

All my campfire stories aren’t going to be in perfect chronological order. But, while still thinking about my early childhood, I do want to include my peak experience into the World of Bondage Sex.

This began for me at age six.

The first time I met 7-year-old M she was already a well-paid whore. When I first saw her, she was peeing into tin cans for the neighborhood boys – and charging them 10 cents per tinkle!! Obviously, a Pro.

But is it fair to call her a whore at the tender age of seven? She was taking cash money for performing water sports for the boys. Maybe whore is too strong a word. Maybe she was a young entrepreneur making a good profit margin, or a budding biology teacher in pre-school training, or maybe she was just an uninhibited gal who liked hanging out with the guys.

I didn’t think any less of her for letting the boys watch her pee into a tin can. I just wanted to have my own private time with her, and I certainly didn’t want to pay 10 cents for watching. I don’t pay for that sort of thing – never have and never will!!

Also, as I recall, we boys never peed in a can for her – so did that make us? Johns.?

Regardless, I explained to her that taking money from the other boys was kind of wrong. A much better way to enjoy her exhibitionism was to go into the woods with me. Alone. To Play Pretend. And Play For Free.

Apparently, I had a smooth line, because the very next day she stopped peeing in cans for the other boys and became my private S/M/Bondage girl. No dimes required.

I asked her – those are the key word here folks – I asked her — to take off her shorts and underwear, so I could place her arms behind her and tie her to a tree with my imaginary ropes. Joan of Arc Style. We always used imaginary ropes; yet she never tried

to break free of her bondage, so I assumed she enjoyed this experience as much as I did.

From there on, it was 50 Shades of Grey!! I won’t go into the details of which shades or how many shades we explored, simply because I don’t know all that much about Legalities and the Statutes of Limitation!! All I know is we certainly didn’t have very many limitations.

We staged this “show me yours” event almost daily in the woods behind her family’s house on the other side of a stone wall where we couldn’t be easily seen. I can’t imagine what would have happened if we had been caught in this act. Certainly, someone’s very real leather belt would have been worn out from wailing on my tiny tender six-year-old ass.

We had great fun for the next couple weeks, creating and exploring Bondage until we finally ran out of new scenarios.

So, at age six and a quarter, I retired from being a Certified Bondage Master.

I never spoke to her again.

I know – I know – Men –

THREE Keeping the Twins Safe

From looking at the old black and white photos my Dad took by the hundreds during our childhood with his ancient Kodak pull-out bellows camera; I can see things I couldn’t have documented otherwise.

There are some wonderful childhood photos that depict our lives from bare assed babies lying on a sheep skin rug right up through our many travels to Florida and all points in between.

One great shot is of me and my twin sister Carole lying prone, faced down on a red brick deck in the broiling summer sun; each of us was tied to a heavy sandbag with short leashes hooked on our harnesses like good little puppies; almost able to touch each other but not able to get tangled up

Apparently, this was what “The Parents” did in those days to keep “The Twins” from wandering away or falling to their death off the second story garage decking.

Jail time likely awaits any parent who does that these days, but back then it must have seemed a normal and sensible solution for a couple of hard-working parents who had to get their new house built before winter set in. This was Day Care as defined by Mom & Dad.

I do remember my early childhood Doctor once telling a story of his first home visit to the New Italians in town. My Parents. He was called there to tend to my dad’s ailing back injury, caused by lifting too many bricks and sacks of mortar.

Apparently in the town’s more civilized households that Doc Brewer visited; not all baby children were raised in the upper two drawers of a very large dresser set in the corner of a would-be bedroom, still under construction.

Perhaps a century earlier, raising children in a chest of drawers occurred much more frequently, but during the late 1940’s, not so much. I’m sure he thought these new arrived Brooklyn Bred Italian Immigrants seemed nice enough, but they sure had some very strange Un-New England like ways. More like Gypsie’s.

I should mention here, that in our rural Connecticut village, while quite sophisticated and cosmopolitan, being only 90 miles north of New York City; Us Italians from Brooklyn, NY were met with a certain wariness. Our small New England town incorporated in 1741 had obviously seen its share of the comings and goings of all manner of folks and even had a few colored families living in its midst; it never had to welcome many Eye-Tral-ions. Everyone knows how they all are connected to certain crime families!

More on family dynamics in a minute. First a sidebar to keep you from banning this book from all public libraries.