By Rick Ryckeley
Fayette County Fire & Emergency Services

The great marshmallow war of '71 started innocently enough with six boys camping out in their back yard. Growing up I was torn between two time-honored professions, becoming a fireman or astronaut. But being a boy from the south with three brothers I seemed to have more interaction with firefighters than astronauts.

My first encounter with the local fire department was the great marshmallow war of '71. It was around this time that Brad, the boy next door, set the back yard on fire. He did not do it intentionally; we were roasting marshmallows and, well, things got a little out of control. My three brothers (John, Mike and Richard) and I, along with Brad and Thomas, were camping out in Brad's back yard. Brad and Thomas were our neighbors on either side.

We had planned this outing for two weeks. Gathering all of the essentials two tents, sleeping bags, flashlights, and with three large mason jars for catching lighting bugs we set out for Brad's back yard. And of course we took one large pack of marshmallows to roast. Not the small kind, no sir the jumbo ones.

Everyone knows that jumbo marshmallows were made just so little boys could roast them over an open fire on the end of a stick (by the end of the summer Brad's back yard was full of gooey marshmallow sticks). Once placed on the end of a stick you had to be careful not to get the marshmallow too close to the fire or it would turn into a flaming ball of white lava. This is where we started to get into trouble.

After roasting and eating a few marshmallows Brad got one too close to the fire. You guessed it; Brad now had a flaming ball of white lava on the end of his stick where his jumbo marshmallow used to be. Don't ask me why, but at this moment he thought it would be a good idea to fling his flaming marshmallow at me. Hence the great Marshmallow War of '71 started.

Soon there were flaming balls of white lava flying all over Brad's back yard. Gooey marshmallow was everywhere and on everything. Marshmallows were on our clothes; our hair and I even found one inside my sleeping bag. I think good old brother John had something to do with that one.

During the heat of the great Marshmallow War one of the flaming balls of white lava was flung and forgotten about. That was how the woods fire started. Brad later told us how it had really started. He was sneaking around the tire swing to ambush us when he ran into a spider web. It was not a normal web; Brad had run into one of those webs that wrap around your entire head. When it did a multi-legged creature crawled up his face starting at his chin, up past his forehead ending somewhere down the back of his neck.

Brad then did what would forever be known as the spider dance. With hands wiping his face and legs moving up and down in a jerking motion, Brad danced through the woods yelling and screaming while forgetting all about the flaming marshmallow that had fallen to the ground. Our parents called the fire department; the firemen came with their trucks, hoses, fire axes and rakes to put the fire out. When asked how the fire started we did what any boys would do; we blamed the fire on someone else. The firefighters would never believe that a Jumbo Marshmallow started the fire. At age 11 my career path was set; watching them fight that fire I knew that one day I, too, would be a firefighter.

During the next ten years my career path would change several times. When I was 12, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and I knew one day I, too, would be an astronaut and go to outer space (somewhere in a scrapbook I still have all of the newspaper clippings from the Apollo missions to the moon).

My junior year in high school my path changed again when Thomas got hurt. It was the last play of the half when Thomas went up to intercept a pass and came down hitting the ground hard. Coach called the Fire Department when he did not get up. Firefighters came and placed Thomas on a backboard, placed a "C" collar around his neck and a call went out for the helicopter. This was the first time any of us had seen a helicopter land on a football field.

Out came two firefighters and a flight nurse. They started an IV, put Thomas in the back of the helicopter and flew him to a downtown hospital. As it turned out Thomas was okay and was playing in the next game, but once again my career path changed. I was going to be like one of those firefighters.

My second year of college a rocket ship went into space and glided back to a safe landing. The space shuttle was a success and I started to study to be one of the few who would fly into outer space.

The start of my fourth year of college my brother Mike was in a horrible car crash. A drunk driver cross the centerline and hit him head on. The drunk driver was unhurt in his Lincoln; Mike in his small car was not so lucky. The firefighters took 45 minutes to cut him out of the car; he was flown to the local hospital were doctors gave him only a 25 percent chance of living.

After seven months in the hospital and may more of rehab, years later Mike ended up being a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. He retires next month after 20 years.

Me? I saw how the firefighters saved my brother's life, how they risked their lives to save my twin, and I wanted to become one of those heroes.

I have been a firefighter for the past 20 years and have helped bring children into this world and held the hands of people while they leave. I have told parents of teenagers that their children will be okay because they were wearing seatbelts when their car went into a ditch. I have helped rescue someone from a house fire and confined the fire to just one room. I've rescued and carried people across raging streams after their car plunged into the water. But the best part of my job is watching children's faces light up when the fire trucks pull up at their schools. We go to the classrooms and teach injury prevention to kids who hang on every word. Because they too want to grow up and be firefighters or astronauts.

Guess I did not have to choose between being a fireman or being an astronaut. For you see, I did get to be an astronaut after all, because the feeling I get from being a firefighter and helping other people is out of this world.

[Rick Ryckeley is a firefighter for the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at saferick@bellsouth.net.]

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