TALKING FOREST
I was hitch hiking out in BC
Got picked up by the RCMP
Said "You like to fight a forest fire"
I said "No," Cause I didn't want to be a liar
Didn't want my pants on fire
Said "Would you like to go to jail"
I said, "About this forest fire"
It started out small in the summer haze
Rangers burnt the brush ahead of the blaze
Just before it reached the guard
The fire died down and the backfire backfired
And spread all around
Of course that's like fighting...
We'd wake at four sleeping pretty placid
Drank some coffee tasted like battery acid
After breakfast we'd be herded in a truck
Halfway up a mountain we got stuck
We were issued a shovel
A Poloski
A lunch
And sometimes a pisstank
I had thought the pisstank was the bar 30 or 40 of us
Would hitch hike to just to drink draft out of our hard hats
The lunches were unbearable as a matter of fact
The bears would steal them then bring them back
We slept in the forest talked of getting rich
Dozers would creep up but we'd never twitch
Actually we'd grab our stuff and run
Getting crushed by a Caterpillar ain't much fun
Now don't get the impression we were lazy
When there was work to do we'd work like crazy
Diggin ditches and carrying water up hills
We had some fun but we earned our bills
Of all the crews ours was the worst
At quittin' time we were always first
Snuck down to the river for a swim one day
Thought we heard helicopters coming our way
Half the camp was looking for us
We became known as the "Lost Crew"
Our whole crew wanted to quit the same day
But the Fire Fighters Manual said we had to stay
It rained for a while and our work was done
It's harder to quit that job than it is to find one
© 1972 Stefan des Lauriers