When I was young, there was a cousin of mine who lived nearby.  His name was Henry Linville.  This was before the days of TV, internet, vieo games, and so forth.  Quite often, on days we weren’t involved in farm duites, we would just walk through the fields and woods, sometimes with shotguns and rifles to have target practice, and sometimes just to enjoy the day and each other’s company.

There was one incident where we were walking through a field of sage brush, surrounded on two sides by woods.  I lit a cigarette, threw the match down, and it caught the sage brush on fire.  He got very excited and started to stomp it out.  I laughed, thinking it would be very easy to be put out.  Unfortunately, it got out of control, and to get it out and keep it out of the woods, we fought fire all day, ruined our shoes, and had our pants legs burned and charred.

We put it out finally and went home.  He didn’t speak to me for days.  I learned actions cause consequences.  That same cousin and I agreed to paint his older brother’s house for $25 each.  This was in the fourties, so that wasn’t too ridiculous a price.  Unfortunately, neither of us knew much about painting, and his older brother had built the house out of wood from two old houses.  We painted it, and the wood just soaked up the paint.  It took us three coats to get it painted satisfactorily.  From this I learn get all the pertinent information you need before attempting to persue a course you are unfamiliar with.