45 Ben Tre Street Pawtucket, Rhode Island. 1968

Perhaps it's a talent of growing older, but I can remember, clearly, events of the long past vs. short term memory. The other day my brain released an All Points Bulletin when I couldn't find my car keys. “Warning! Red Alert! Priority ONE! Find those Car Keys!” Of course, they were where I had left them in the first place,where I always leave them

Here's a story of Dear Ol' Dad Vs. The Yellow Jacket Nest that I remember well.

I was four in 1968 and my Dad has his own little police action against guerrilla bees that had infiltrated our yard by the white picket fence that separated the driveway from the backyard. My Dad succeeded in neutralizing the opposing force by finally using a bit of adopted Vietnam War strategy. Those of you old enough can remember this cute quote picked up by reporter Peter Arnett in his writing about Bến Tre city on 7 February 1968.

'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it', a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong, as they had repelled every US ground force attack prior.”

**

At four, the entire world is your friend, or at least you still think so, the majority of it anyway. I was playing around with the garden hose when I saw a slow moving, flying bee come near me. I said, and I still remember this, “Hello, Mr. Bee” when the thing landed on my bare leg and stung me. You could have heard me on Mars from the way I was screaming.

What I didn't know was that was no honey bee but a yellow jacket, nature's gang banger bees who hate to be dissed or see anything infringe upon their turf.

Later that day, my Mom had told our Dad that she had found an underground nest over by the fence. The bees were coming in and out of a hole they had dug, by one of the fence posts, behind one of our garbage cans. He thought it no big deal and advised us to “Leaven them alone and they'll leave YOU alone.” I protested that I had left them alone and was stung anyway. Like any self assured adult, he blew off my four year old claim as worthless.

A day or two later, my Dad stumbles into the house, yelling, “Maureen!” He was holding his head with both hands. My Mom comes running to see what happened when Dad says, “I got stung! Twice! My scalp and my face!” He pulled his hand away from his cheek and there was this large, red golf ball sized lump on it.”

My Mom, who could be snarky as hell said,”What did you do? Antagonize those bees?” My Dad quickly denied anything like that and claimed he was just trying to put a bag into the garbage can and he was WHOLLY innocent of molestation of any bees.

“Uh-huh.” my Mom says.

Of course, now something will be done about those bees. Never mind it had to take him being nailed twice in the head to do it.

He tried flooding them out. My brother and I watched as he sprayed the area with the hose for a good 20 minutes. The area had turned into a mud puddle and my Dad thought, “Well that takes care of that.”

A day or two later the bees emerged from underground. They had survived Noah's Flood and rebuilt their nest at good as new.

My Dad then thought of this: He'll burn them out.

My brother and I were in the backyard with Dad, watching him put his weapons together and of course, we were excited to watch the bombing run he was about to do. He had an old paint stirrer can that held about one quart which he filled with gasoline. He going to toss this at the nest and hopefully that would do the trick.

“Both of you, get in the house!” my Dad orders.

“Awwww...can't we watch? We'll stay over by the shed!”

My Dad wasn't going for that. He wasn't about to sling gasoline around while his two boys were freely roaming the yard. So off into the house we go but we find great front row seats by the kitchen window.

Dad's idea worked, but too well...

We watched as he ran over to the nest, pound on the ground around it with his feet to vibrate it. He ran away in time to watch the flood of bees coming out to fuck up just whoever did that. At about seven feet away, my Dad lights an entire pack of matches, tosses that towards the bee nest and then slings the quart of gasoline at the nest as well..

“FOOOOM!

Did you know, that a gasoline fireball can cast it's own shadows in the full summer sunlight. It's that bright. My brother and I watched in awe as this miniature Hiroshima mushroom cloud engulfed the nest, the fence and tree above it.

“How's THAT you little bastards!” My Dad yelled. He apparently was getting a little revenge on them for stinging his face.

So we watched as the fire burned out the nest. But as that occurred, we noticed the fence caught on fire as well. My Dad took note of that too as we saw him running to the side of the house to grab the hose.

Your parents teach you things. How to live life, how to ride a bike and how to tie your shoes. You also can learn much by their silly mistakes.

Dad tried something that never works, putting out a gasoline fire with water. He fired the hose at the ground, fence and in doing so, my brother and I got to see a flamethrower in action. The water pressure sprayed the gas, along the ground, into a large flame that set fire now to the yew bushes.

“Wow, that didn't work.” I hear my brother say to himself.

Dad was great at panicking at times, though it was a rare occurrence in truth. If spraying the fire with the hose won't work, just run to the spigot and turn it ALL the way UP and try it again .

“FOOOOOM! The fire said as it created newer fireballs. 

“Richard! Richard! STOP THAT! Let the gas just burn itself OUT! My Mom yells out the window.

Dad finally took her advice and lo and behold the fire did die out. Mom goes out the door and we follow her to get a great close up look.

It looked like a napalm drop. The fence was blackened and smoking, the yew bush had lost about half of it's needles and the area where the nest was, there were about 40 dead, crispy yellow jackets.

“Jesus, Richard...What if you had aimed that at the house? Mom admonishes.

“But, but the fire's out” Dad says.

Mom mumbles something about having to replace the fence panel and trimming the yew of it's dead branches.

To Ken and I, this was a GREAT Saturday afternoon. Nothing is more fun that watching Dad create fireballs. 

 Perhaps a simple can of Raid would've worked?