Cousins–Now that’s a fire

Today, we will try to get to the truth of one of the great mysteries of these 4 cousins.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent and the not so innocent.  Our cast, 2 sets of brothers.  The Dink and the Hulk and Sluggo and the Midge.  The Dink and Sluggo are the same age and the Hulk and the Midge are the same age, but there is a 3 year difference between the Dink and Sluggo (older) and the Hulk and the Midge (younger).

Our story takes place in the backyard of the Dink and the Hulk’s house.  It was a spring afternoon.  The parents were away at work and the 4 boys were screwing around like boys do.  They weren’t rolling grass in notebook paper and smoking it or throwing rocks at Mercedes or anything like that (whole other stories) but one of the boys had an idea.  There may or may not have been a discussion but the boys started gathering some of the dead grass from the backyard, and there may have been a few other things thrown under there.  Under where, you ask?  I’ll get to that.  After a decent pile of grass, sticks and twigs.  One of the boys had an idea to help it along.  They went into the garage and grabbed some lighter fluid.  Because it was the 80’s and nobody had gas grills yet.  This particular boy sprayed some of that on the pile.

What comes next is up for debate.  One of the boys lights a match and tosses it on the pile under the picnic table.  That’s right, under the wooden picnic table, they started a fire.  The stories all vary here and this cub reporter hasn’t gotten a straight answer about how big the fire was.  But there was multiple reports of using wooden bats to hit out the fire.  Nobody remembers how the fire eventually gets put out or how much of the picnic table got burned.  But I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.  None of the boys admit to anything and none of the boys have recollection of any punishment, at least none they would admit to.  There has even been reports of a neighborhood hoodlum who goes by the name Murph to have been involved.  But typing this story out 20+ years later, nobody has much memory left of this incident.

This reporter has heard from all 4 of the conspirators and 3 of the 4 vaguely remember Sluggo starting the fire.  But Sluggo denies this and offers up the Murph theory.  So I guess even after all the interviews I’ve conducted 20+ years later, that this will remain a mystery to be debated at all the family functions.  As it is now, when 3 of those 4 get together, the 1 who isn’t there takes the blame.  This reporter has his theories and thinks he knows who lit the fire, but here at Random Thoughts from a Random Guy, we only speak the truth and not conspiracies

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