[PhilDragoo]

In the New Mexico village of Chimayo (densest concentration of heroin overdoses in U.S.) in the summer of '76 I was house-sitting for a fer-reel cinematographer who'd bought his land from the Spanish uncle of the neighborhood bad boy. In the ensuing fit, the bad boy set fire to the cinematographer's goat shed and flat bed truck. That was before he went to California for a job and had me watch his place. On the twelfth night at midnight the hyenas burned his Fiat.

They threw [uh, gasoline] on a tire. Have you tried to extinguish a burning tire? I shoveled a yard or two of sand on it until I thought I'd have a heart attack. After an hour, the volunteer fire department got around to bouncing up the arroyo, and peed on it for a full twenty minutes with water--just, water.

And the funniest thing: they knocked it down. . .and it came right back.

And the bad boy and his friends sat on the front porch across the dirt road drinking beer and laughing.

The photos above show the passenger compartment was the fire: not the engine or gas tank. Well, gee, maybe there was gasoline in the passenger compartment and somebody set it on fire.

Could've happened.

Just a theory.

[Nita Nupress]

Your theory was much more interesting to read than JimBo's. ;-)