"My Life"
"Charles A. Giannetta"
Meteorologist - Professor
Bath, Pa. USA.
"Our Club House"
Sometime between 6th and 7th grade,
11 or 12 yrs. old, 1946 or 1947, me,
and my two friends had a small club-house
behind one of my friends father's garage.
We would go in there and talk about
sports, girls and whatever. In the club
house we had a small kerosene
lanter for light.
To get kerosene for the light we would
walk down along the railroad tracks and get
kerosene out of the lights along the railroad.
One spring day the three of us went to get
some kerosene. We filled up a small glass bottle
with the kerosene.
One of my friends put the bottle in his pants
pocket. On our way home he fell and broke the
bottle of kerosene which was in his pants
pocket. The kerosene spilled onto his pants
and made his pants wet.
Not knowing any better and being afraid of
what our families would say and do to us for
taking the herosene, we decided to build a
fire and dry out his pants. We built the
fire. While standing near the fire my friend's
pants caught fire. We could not put the fire
out. I was wearing a new jacket that my
parents had just bought me. I took the jacket
off and put it over his's pants which were
now burning fierecly. I rolled the jacket
around his leg and put the fire out.
My friendss leg was burned quite badly, not to
say, now we were really scared to go home.
When we got home my friend went to the doctor.
I never told my my parents about this. I don't
know about my other friend whether or not he told his
parents. My friend that received the burn, his
mon and dad were dead.
In time my friend's leg did heal but the fire left
a rather large scare from his knee to his ankle.
He did go into the army. The burn he
received that day did not seem to hinder him
later life.
