The Story

We were sitting around the campfire at Mom's and Eddie started telling 'the lawnmower burning story'

I embellished it with my memories - which amounted to me seeing the fire and running inside and hiding - not sure what that was going to accomplish - but I didn't see the fire anymore - I think I was six...

Eddie was about 8 years old (not old enough to mow the lawn) so Mom was doing that. She needed to re-fuel so she brought the lawnmower down to the patio and filled it up. Eddie wanted to burn some rocks (haha) so he's old enough to play with fire - so he poured some gasoline onto his little pile of rocks and lit them with a match - and gasoline being what gasoline is - on a warm day - when he ignited the gas on his rocks - the fire traveled with the fumes to the still open gas tank on the mower - and POOF - we have fire there as well. The flames were leaping up near the overhang of the house - blacking and scorching the white paint. (This is when I ran inside and hid.) Mom, fearing that the mower would explode, ran inside and called the fire department. They very calmly told her that the mower would not explode as the cap was already off and just to pull the mower away from the house. She looped a piece of rope around the handle of the mower and pulled it away from the house and just let it burn out. I guess that ruined the mower - and now you have the rest of the story...