How to Build a Fire: And Other Handy Things Your Grandfather Knew (3 page)

Chuck Tatum

Though HBO’s miniseries
The Pacific
drew upon his self-published book,
Red Blood, Black Sand
, about his experiences fighting in Iwo Jima, that’s only part of Chuck Tatum’s story. He was born on July 23, 1926, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His father, an oil field builder, died of pneumonia when Tatum was just eight years old, and his mother, who later moved her brood to Stockton, California, raised all six kids single-handedly. Despite the hardship, Tatum recalls a happy childhood, shooting marbles, playing sandlot baseball, and collecting dime-store novels. “I became very interested in reading about airplanes and cowboys and crooks,” he said. By age fifteen, Tatum, struck by a patriotic fervor, began begging his mother for permission to enlist in the marines. “I was afraid the war would be over before I could get in it,” he said, adding that he selected the marines because “they had the best-looking uniforms.” Eventually, she relented, and in July 1943 he went to Camp Pendleton in San Diego, where he trained as a machine gunner under Sergeant John Basilone, the famous war hero and Medal of Honor winner. The two fought side by side in the battle of Iwo Jima. In the thirty-six days it took to take the island, 6,821 marines, including Basilone, were killed, and more than 20,000 others were wounded. Tatum, then only eighteen years old, earned a Bronze Star for his heroism on the battlefield. In the summer of 1945, he returned to Stockton, where he became a fireman, married, had two children, and divorced. In the meantime, he decided to try his hand at car racing. “I found out that you could make good money. Some nights you could win fifty dollars! I wasn’t making that in a
week
!” It turned out he had quite a talent for it, and eventually he designed and built his own race car, The Tatum Special, which was featured in the 1954 movie
Johnny Dark
. (Look closely, and you’ll see Tatum driving the car.) By then, he’d also met and fallen in love with his second wife, Evelyn, whom he married in 1952 at age twenty-six. They had four children together, and in 1964, after a close call on the racetrack, Tatum, not wanting his children to grow up fatherless like he did, retired from racing and became a car salesman. Now he’s looking forward to celebrating his sixtieth wedding anniversary. On the guest list: his eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Joseph Toth

Joe Toth was born in Buffalo, New York, on February 10, 1923. His father, like most in the area, worked at the steel plant as a bricklayer. “He had such hardworking hands. Every day he’d come home with blisters on his knuckles,” said Toth. “When I saw those hands, I thought,
I’m never going to work in a steel mill.
” With eleven siblings, everyone in the family had to chip in, and Toth remembered doing his part. “Everybody loved wearing knickers, because they had elastic below the knee. So, you’d go into somebody’s yard with a fruit tree and pick fruit. Of course, you had holes in your pockets so you could fill your pockets
and
your knickers. By the time you were done, you’d be pretty heavy!” After graduating from high school, Toth attended Alfred University, a trade school, and worked on a government-run farm, milking cows and cleaning gutters. On Columbus Day, 1942, he enlisted in the navy and became a fire controlman (or ship gunner). Before he shipped out, one of his buddies introduced him to his fiancée, Frances. “It was love at first sight,” said Toth. “I told my friend, ‘If you screw up and lose Frances, she’s mine!’ ” His friend did, and Toth soon won her heart. In the fall of 1943, he was scheduled to depart for the Pacific on the USS
Liscome Bay
, but the ship had too many fire controlmen, so everyone with last names beginning with
T
through
Z
got reassigned. After the ship departed without Toth, it took a direct torpedo hit by a Japanese submarine and sank, along with more than six hundred men aboard. “I just thank God my name starts with a
T
,” Toth told me. When he got out of the service, he moved to Garfield, New Jersey, married Frances, and became an electrician. Together, they raised two children. Now he lives in Warwick, Pennsylvania, where his two granddaughters and four great-grandchildren visit him often. A navy man to this day, his grandchildren call him “Mate,” and he loves to make their eyes light up by building them things, including giant dollhouses with hand-laid parquet floors, chandeliers, and tiny working light switches.

Frank Walter

On October 1, 1922, Frank Walter was born in Milton, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. His father worked for New England Bell Telephone, and after the stock market crashed, his mother picked up work with the Camp Fire Girls, a sister organization of the Boy Scouts. Life in the Walter household ran on a tight schedule: Supper was at 6
PM
, bedtime was at 7
PM
—and when he wasn’t doing chores, Walter would roller-skate or play Ping-Pong with his two younger brothers. He attended Tufts University, but after his sophomore year, he enlisted in the navy with hopes of becoming a pilot. By March 1943, he’d earned his wings and soon after was selected to join the marines’ Corsair Flying Fighter squadron in Okinawa. After the war ended, he remained in Japan as an operations officer. “I was the only captain who wasn’t married, so I said I’d stay as long as I was needed,” he said. In 1946, when he returned home, his parents threw him a party, where a childhood friend, Elinor, sat on his lap and asked him, “Well, Frank, are you going to marry me now?” He dodged the question.

After graduating from Tufts with a degree in mechanical engineering, Walter took a gig with the Chrysler Corporation in Detroit, which allowed him to work during the day and earn his master’s degree at night on the company dime. He ended up working for the automaker for forty years, where one of his greatest achievements was conceptualizing the Plymouth Barracuda. “We conceived of it on the back of an envelope,” he noted, adding that he also helped design the Fury and the Roadrunner. In the meantime, he’d married another woman, had one son, adopted a ten-year-old daughter, taken up skiing, and later divorced. In 1977, he sent Elinor a card out of the blue. She called him immediately, told him of her marriage, her four children, and her divorce. Almost exactly thirty-one years after her initial proposal, the two married. They shared eleven wonderful years together, often swishing down the slopes of Copper Mountain in Colorado, before Elinor lost her battle with cancer. Now he lives just off the lift line, as they dreamed of doing together, and he still feels close to her on the slopes. Maybe that’s one reason he still skis every single day of the season, and as often as possible with his twelve grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

1
Pioneering
•  •  •

Begin by knowing your way around your kingdom. That way, you’ll always be warm, safe, happy, and well fed wherever you go
.

Grow Up
•  •  •

“Talk to plants, and they will grow. Life without love, for all living things, is nothing. If you give love to something, it will reciprocate. That’s how we are as humans, too.”

—A
NGEL
R
ODRIGUEZ

H
OW TO
P
LANT A
T
REE

Step 1:
Choose the right tree. Consider not only its size, speed of growth, shape, and looks, but also its hardiness. It should be native to your area and strong enough to weather the hottest and coldest temperatures, and all the sunshine and rain you may or may not get. Other things to think about: Will your tree lose its leaves every year (and do you really want to rake them)? Does it bear fruit (and if so, will you eat it or curse it when it’s smushed on the bottom of your shoe)?

Step 2:
Find a good spot. Look up, look down, look all around and make sure your tree will have plenty of space to thrive. Your tree may look small now, but it won’t be for very long, and if you plant a soon-to-be-big sucker right next to your house or directly under utility lines, you’ll be paying for that bad decision for years to come. Also, a no-brainer: Before digging any holes, call your local utility company to make sure you’re clear of any underground cables.

Step 3:
Dig a hole. A well-planted tree will grow faster and live longer than a poorly planted tree, so take care to do it right. Using a shovel, dig a big ol’ bowl-shaped hole as deep as the tree’s roots (or root-ball) and at least twice as wide. The hole will most certainly look bigger than you think it needs to be, but the roots need that extra room to grow. Don’t slack on the digging.

Step 4:
Measure up. Place your tree in the hole and see if it’s deep enough. If it’s just right, proceed to step 5. If it’s too deep, put some soil back. If it’s too shallow, go have a lemonade. Then come back and keep digging.

Step 5:
Position your tree. It should stand upright in the center of the hole. If your tree comes in a container, tap the pot to gently remove it, being careful not to rip the trunk from the roots. If your tree comes with its roots wrapped in burlap, plunk the whole thing in the pit and carefully remove the burlap, along with any twine, wire, nails, or staples.

Step 6:
Fill the hole. Replace the soil you removed, packing it down firmly around the roots. You’ll want your tree pit to catch water, so make sure your tree grows from the pit’s deepest point. Then look for a little bulge at the base of your tree’s trunk. It’s called the root collar, and you want your soil to snuggle its bottom only. If you can’t see your tree’s collar, it may be planted too deep.

Step 7:
Add water. Give the ground a good soak.

Step 8:
Spread mulch (wood chips or bark) around your tree a couple of inches deep. It’ll help keep the soil warm and moist, prevent weeds and erosion, and just make the whole thing look nice.

Step 9:
Feel proud. Not only do trees help beautify the world, but they also help you save on energy costs, improve your water and air quality, give a home to songbirds, boost your property value, and fight global warming. Take good care of it by watering it once a week and pruning only dead or broken branches.

More Handy Tips:

• To find the best trees for your area, enter your zip code at
  ArborDay.org
  and get all the information you’ve ever dreamed of. Better yet, join the Arbor Day Foundation for ten dollars, and you’ll receive ten free trees of your choice. Seriously.
  
• If you’re planting a sapling with naked roots, remove any packaging and soak the roots in a bucket of water for up to six hours before planting.
  
• If you’re planting a tree that came in a pot and the roots look tangled once they’re free, use a utility knife and make an X on the bottom of the root-ball and a vertical line down each side.
  

Aim True
•  •  •

“By the time I was six, I was splitting wood. Make sure you’ve got it lined up right and then go from there. It’s not about muscle. The ax will do the work for you, but you can help it a little bit. If you’re lucky, you’ll hit it and have two pieces of wood. Usually, it takes a few blows. And don’t cut your feet!”

—P
HILIP
S
POONER

H
OW TO
S
PLIT
F
IREWOOD

Step 1:
Dress appropriately. Wear safety goggles, leather work gloves, steel-toed boots, and a plaid flannel shirt, if you’ve got one. The first three items will help protect you from harm, while the last one will make you look butch. You’ll also need a maul, which is basically a fatter version of an ax built specifically for splitting wood vertically, as opposed to chopping across it. (Axes will work, too, but because they’re slimmer, they tend to get stuck in the wood more often, and that’s just frustrating.)

Step 2:
Set a twelve- to eighteen-inch log on end on a raised, flat wooden surface about fourteen inches tall. The perfect chopping block: a sawed-off tree stump. Your second-best option: on the soft ground. You may have to wrest your maul from the depths of the dirt sometimes, but that’ll only help you build stronger muscles. Never ever split wood on pavement, or you and anybody in your vicinity will get hurt. Flying shards of steel? Not fun.

Step 3:
Get in position, and eyeball where you’d like to split the wood. Cracks are nature’s way of helping you along, so take advantage of them. Once you’ve focused on your target, place the sharp edge of your maul on it and, with your arms fully extended, grip the end of the handle with both hands. Step back a few inches so you’re slightly reaching, and plant your feet shoulder-width apart.

Step 4:
Prepare to strike. Pick up your maul and hold it parallel to the ground, across the front of your body, blade facing away from you. Place your weak hand at the base of the handle, palm facing down, and your dominant hand closer to the head, palm facing up. Grunt for good measure.

Step 5:
Swing deep. Slightly bend your knees, and then raise your maul overhead with your arms extended, allowing your dominant hand to slide to the base of the handle. Keeping your eye on your target, swing your maul in a downward motion to meet the wood. Find the grace in the movement. Every woodsman knows that technique (and gravity) counts more than brute strength.

Step 6:
Repeat as necessary. Maybe it’ll take one good crack, maybe more. Just keep hitting your log in the same place until it splits. Then keep going until you have your desired amount of splits. Save the little pieces, too. They make great kindling.

Step 7:
Stack ’em up and let ’em dry. If it’s new wood, it’ll be ready to burn in about nine months. If it’s already seasoned, it’s ready to burn now.

More Handy Tips

• Knotty, gnarly, or curvy wood can be tough to split. Save those pieces for last or, better yet, just use them for decoration.
  
• To gain more momentum in your swing, rise up on your toes before dropping your maul.
  
• If your maul does get stuck, keep a few steel wedges nearby and tap them into the wood with a little sledgehammer. That’ll usually be enough to split the log into pieces and free your tool.
  
• Always remember, the best cure for a hot head and a cold house: splitting wood. Do it as often as necessary.