Whence?
I have an inkling, but my inklings have proven wrong before...


in the trenches

I've always assumed that it means (and derives from) being the thrird to use a lit© match will usually get you burned.

... OK, and I've assumed that when you're sharing one match to light three cigarettes in a trench, said triangularization pinpoints y'all to the enemy.

looks like there may be some truth to the trench-theory, but it had to do with duration, not triangulation.

http://www.shu.ac.uk/web-admin/phrases/bulletin_board/3/messages/66.html

I also understood this is why many soldiers smoke with their hand cupped over and around the cigarette - it makes the light much less visible.

>smoke with their hand cupped over and around the cigarette

gives you those attractive yellow hands too!

Dear AnnS
When I was a child the family went to a country hotel for vacations and the handy man was a Scot, known to us only as "Bucko" who had fought in the Boer War as a teenager. We children were very fond of him. He was an amazing golfer and always made time to help us with our shots. He had some amazing stories including the one about three on a match and the snipers. I was reminded of "Bucko" when I watched the Masterpiece Theater presentaion of "Bramwell" last night as the episode centered on the early days of the Boer War. And then, up pops AnnaS' query!
Tsuwm's link appears to bear out "Bucko's" story.
wow

"Word has it" that the third on a match will die in a whorehouse...

Allo AnnaS,

The explanations above seem to make sense...the only thing I am curious about is where on earth you heard this expression. I can't be all that common anymore because matches are somewhat out of use (when it comes to lighting cigarettes at least). I am not sure about everywhere else but most everybody here uses lighters.

still catching on to following threads etc. I first heard reference to one's being third on a match during military training prior to a tour in Vietnam. The reference indicates the imminent demise of that third party thusly: light a match to ignite your own smoke, the enemy (V C snipers) is alerted to your collective presence; pass the match to a second party, the enemy can sight in; pass the match to the third smoker, the shooter pulls the trigger with deadly aim.

Word has it" that the third on a match will die in a whorehouse...

"... to every man upon this earth,
Death cometh soon or late.
And what better way of dying ..."
Macaulay, Horatius.

Maybe there are better way of dying, but it sure beats dying inthe trenches

dying inthe trenches

VC, VD, Vici

BelM wrote : matches are somewhat out of use ..

Ah, the exceptions being matches for starting the campfire in leisurely civilian pursuits and the waterproof, wooden matches carried into the field, in screw top containers, by the Troops. They're also used to read maps in dark when batteries in pen lights die and they have various other uses. This according to friends still serving.
Oh, in case you're wondering the matches are "waterproofed" by putting a waxy coating on the striking head which coating is easily overcome when the match is struck on an abrasive surface.
wow

and some of us Eco sensitive types use them instead of pilot lights on our stoves...

I have a pilot light on my oven, but they are turn off and i light my burners with matches. (i even have some of the illegal (in NY at any rate) strike anywhere matches) Lest you think cutting down trees to make match sticks is bad, i might point out, i cook so infrequently as to sometimes find cob webs on my stove. (thank god for toaster ovens and microwaves!)

Oh, in case you're wondering the matches are "waterproofed" by putting a waxy coating on the striking head which coating is easily overcome when the match is struck on an abrasive surface.

I beg to differ! My boyfriend (now husband) left some of those matches at my house once, and my brother and I still tease him about those waterproof, fireproof matches!

Doesn't anyone else have a living fire in their grate at home? I do find that rather sad, as there is nothing quite so comforting, especially on grey and misty days, as a fire to share with your cat and other loved ones (if the cat will let anyone else near enough to benefit from the heat!)

>Doesn't anyone else have a living fire in their grate at home?

I've got one of those gas powered lookalike ones now but I used to love my real fire which I had to leave behind a couple of houses ago.

I grew up with a genuine wood burning fire heating my parents' home. I now have a gas fireplace, with fake logs and a fire that always looks exactly the same. It just can't compare to the sound of wood crackling and the flicker of firelight on a cold evening.

We have two fireplaces, though one has been used only once
since we've lived here. The first winter, though the flue was open, the whole house filled with smoke in about two minutes. I've been afraid to try it since.
I don't have a fire going just now, it's daytime, but it is a grey, damp day here. I've got warm light on and a James
Galway (hi, Geoff) tape playing. After a while, there'll be the aroma of dinner cooking, and perhaps after supper, a fire in the working fireplace. Yup, there's no place like home. Thanks for the suggestion, Rhuby. You-all know what else? This board gives that same feeling. Thanks, everybody.

Fireplaces
Like many people in the US, we have a fireplace but rarely use it. Those of you who are accustomed to fires of one sort or another, whether coal/wood or gas in a fireplace with some sort of chimney, may not realize that you can't combine central heating with a fireplace. The fireplace sucks the heat out of the rest of the house and causes the furnace to run extra hard and wastes fuel frightfully; if you turn off the central heat (by turning the thermostat way down) the rest of the house gets cold and there are hardly any houses in the US (other than mansions) that have more than 1 or 2 fireplaces. As a result, if you like a fire now and then, as we do, you only light the fireplace in spring or fall, when the central heating isn't needed much, to take the chill and damp off the house. If you light it for atmosphere in cold weather, you pay dearly for it. Also, in the U.S., wood is used almost exclusively; coal can be bought, but hardly anyone does; and firewood is quite expensive -- $5.00 to 8.50 for a bundle that will last for one evening, and it's usually low quality.

It's too bad the decline of Western fireplaces left Dick van Dyke out of a career that sooted him perfectly. And now I hear he wears a 3-piece soot to his new job... as some sort of attorney?

Like Jackie and BYB, i too have an old fashioned fireplace, and the last of my good aged oak lying there waiting for an occation. Once its gone, i only have maple left to burn--

Unlike BYB-- i don't buy wood-- there are enough trees pruned or cut down or blown down in storms to keep me in wood-- it just means hauling it away, drying it, and splitting-- yet another reason not to have fires too often. Most of my maple has only been drying for a year, and has another year or so before it is fully seasoned. I do have one oak log (about 30" in diameter left) but i have to split it to use. One of these days....

and as for the cat-- good riddance! I finally got my daughter to take her cat back in November -- she had moved out 22 months before that, and i hated having a cat!

BYB--watch for local highway improvements. They are adding a HOV lane to I-495 (long island Expressway) and have cut down many of the weed trees that have grown up-- and some very nice ones too. the contractor cut the logs into 2 to 3 foot sections, and stacked it-- with a sign free fire wood. It went quickly! and i am sure he saved some money on carting fee's.

About places to light a fire : Bob is right on the money about central heat and fireplaces ... and Jackie: get a reputable sweep to check out that unused chimney. Trouble could loom!
I always loved fireplaces until I spent a year in the Sierra Nevada where the entire heat for the house was a wood stove. It had doors that opened so I could enjoy the "fireplace" aspect. The Vermont Castings stove gave great heat, was easy to bank so the morning fire was easy to build up and I had no complaints about its efficiency but after a year of dealing with the wood dust a woodstove causes, splitting wood and paying for cords of wood -- three to get through a year -- it lost its charm.
If the heat around here goes off I have a neighbor who has a passive solar house and my son's house is a late 1700s center chimney Colonial with working fireplaces in every room! So I can do without a fireplace and all the mess, thank you very much!
wow

All this talk of fireplaces and chimney sweeps reminds me of that hilarious scene in Dorothy Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon where the chimney sweep tries to free the ancient chimney of its "sut." If I remember correctly, Lord Peter (or someone) is eventually forced to fire off a shot from a blunderbuss to get the chimney open.

If fireplaces are disappearing from regular use, I wonder how long the "Santa Claus down the chimney" story will last (if, indeed, it's still current)?

And how will he arrive (by e-mail???) <grin>

Clearly, paulb, you have missed both the movie, The Santa Clause, and the Twisted Christmas song, There's Something in the Chimney.

In the movie, we learn that Santa carries a fireplace with him, to access all abodes. And in the Twisted Christmas song, we learn that Santa got stuck in the chimney and died, anyway. HO HO HO

Because there's something in the chimney
And we don't know what it is
But it's been there all year long

I'll be waiting up for Santa
Like I did last year
But my brother says
He's already here...

I lived in three houses that had fireplaces, and every one of them would fry your face while freezing your fanny. I never felt rich enough to buy one of the glass enclosures.
The big problem with chimnies used to be creosote building up near top especially from lazy idiots banking fire with green wood. The large chimney in the kitchen would have top so nearly closed a cat could not have climbed through, let alone a sweep. I have seen flames shooting up twenty feet out of a chimney on fire, and if mortar had failed between any bricks lower down the pressure would send jet of flame sidewise into woodwork, and whole house would burn down.

I had one once that got most of its draft from the garage and had side vents that sucked air from the room, ran it up the sides of the fireplace and spewed it out at the top. Heated the better part of the house quite well. Heatolater I think it was called.

As I remember it : Heat-A-Lator was the name and it was standard in houses built in the late 1950s and 1960s when fireplaces built into new homes. And it did exactly as described and is still doing it in those houses still in use.
wow

I had a friend who had Heatolater that had air circulation passages get filled up with lint, caught fire, blew burning lint and soot all through house. What a mess.

In my last house, built in 1929 with standard wood-burning masonry fireplaces, a heat-exchanging insert had been installed in the living room fireplace. The insert covered the entire opening of the fireplace, and unbeknownst to me, the cavity inside the fireplace had been filled with granular insulation, surrounding the smaller insert. A squirrel fell down the chimney, and sunk into the insulation like a dinosaur in a tar pit. He tried to dig himself out, and my first clue that something was up was a small pile of the insulation spilling out of a corner of the fireplace. I had to pull out the insert and dig out the squirrel. Happy ending for squirrel, who was released in the adjacent park. Not so happy ending for me, who spent hours dispensing with the insulation, which flowed into the living room like sand from an hourglass.

burning lint
There have been reports from time to time of serious house fires from the lint which collects in the exhaust hoses of clothes dryers. Safety experts recommend replacing these every year or so, or at the least detaching them from time to time to check for lint buildup. Verb sap.

Recently I had the plastic tube that leads from the dryer to the outside replaced by a metal pipe. I learned the lint is caught by the bumpy bits that make the plastic extendable whereas the metal pipe does not collect lint as fast. Not cheap but worth the peace of mind. Another plus is that a commercial AC company can use the high pressure air blower to clean out the metal pipe but it cannot be used with the plastic because the high volume air shreds the plastic! Also the plastic deteriorates over time making it more unreliable, I'm told
wow

serious house fires from the lint

This doesn't surprise me too much. When I go on camping trips with my Boy Scout troop we often bring along lint for use as fire starters. It works quite well.

Dear Jazz: My brother used to a Scout champion at starting fires with short push bow, with rawhide cord around octagonal yucca rod which had one end in palm held soapstone, the business end in notched cedar board. The tinder was mostly old cedar bark and other natural materials
shredded to lint, with shavings underneath and on top. I don't remember his best times, but they were surprisingly short. Do the kids still compete at this?

Do the kids still compete at this?

I don't think I've ever seen anyone start a fire with just sticks, that's impossible. If was a requirement in the past, it's not anymore. There is a requirement of starting a fire with just one match, though.

If was a requirement in the past, it's not
anymore. There is a requirement of starting a fire with just one match, though.

Tenderfoot! Why, you young whippursnapper, in my day boy scouts started fires by rubbing their trouser legs together fast enough to set the fabric on fire, then jumped outern 'em before they got burned!

Another fun trick, common in the "old days," when carbide miner's lamps were common, was to take some calcium carbide along. You'd surruptitiously toss the carbide beneath some wet tender, strike a flint over it, and POOF! Calcium carbide, when wet, liberates acytelene gas.

Calcium carbide, when wet, liberates acytelene gas...

And come on now, be honest! How many of us have actually ridden a bicycle fitted with a headlamp utilising this phenomenon, as I have in my not all that distant youth?

lusy

And come on now, be honest! How many of us have actually ridden a bicycle fitted with a headlamp utilising this
phenomenon, as I have in my not all that distant youth?

Not too distant? C'mon, admit it - you're the same LUCY that L.S.B. Leakey dug up in Olduvai Gorge! At the very least, you were around when Rovers and Peugeots all had pedals!

In reply to:

---

I don't think I've ever seen anyone start a fire with just sticks, that's impossible.

---

Really, Jazz? It not as hard as it sounds-- you need not two, but three sticks, Once very dry piece of wood, with a notch is it and some lint or fine tinder near, one firm stick, slightly pointed, to spin, and a third stick, flexible made into a bow with a shoe lace. the shoe lace goes around the firm stick and you slide the bow back and forth swiftly to spin the firm stick, create friction and start your fire. a good trick is to use a knive to make a point on the firm stick, and then gently roll it it the creases of your nose (where your nose meets your cheeks.) that is naturally one of the oiliest places on a human body--it give the stick just enough lubricant to spin, but not so much that it doesn't heat up from friction.

My daughter took a wilderness surviveal course last year, and one "test" was starting a fire with out a match! (she passed, of course.)