The Story of the Fire behind the Stove

This is a difficult story to write because it is a funny story but with a very different type of ending, one that is not funny. This is a story with effects that stretch over the years like faint whispers on the wind.

It was the summer of ’67. I had just graduated from college with a degree in Registered Nursing. I was employed at my home town hospital with an appointment date to take the State’s Finals for licensing. I enjoyed working at the hospital, and in a way it was like school because I was learning the practical side of my profession as well as helping people. It was also a time of decision as well. My future husband was still in the Army and stationed in Oklahoma. We had not decided if marriage was what we truly wanted, so the final decision would be made when he was mustarded out of the army in a few months. It was a time when the fashion of skirt and dress lengths had gotten very short. The popular dress apparel for young women was mini skirts and mini dresses. The hem or bottom of the skirt was approximately 10 inches below the waist. This meant that when you sat down, you would be sitting on the bare chair and not the material of the skirt or dress. It also meant that your arm extended down would be below the skirt line. I had brought a mini dress but I was afraid to wear it. It was really too short to make me feel comfortable and for heavens sake’s, don’t ever bend over!!

On this particular Sunday, I came home from working at the hospital and Mom was still working at the restaurant. My sisters were off somewhere with my father, so I had the house to myself. As a mentioned in my earlier stories, having the house to me was an event of greatest remembrance. Since I was hungry, I selected a TV dinner from the freezer and placed it in the oven. (This is before microwave ovens.) The dinner would take about 25 minutes to heat, so I changed out of my uniform into the mini dress. I decided to wear it in order to determine if I could get comfortable in this outfit, and besides no one was home to see me. It was a great solution? Right – wrong!!

The timer went off; I removed the dinner from the oven and began to eat. Just was I finished the meal, I noticed a strange odor. Something was burning. I walked towards the kitchen and immediately saw smoke coming from the back of the stove. I tried to move the stove from the wall in order to see what was burning and hopefully put out the fire. I couldn’t move the stove, so I got a pan of water and poured it between the wall and stove. I repeat this for a few times. The smoke was still coming out from behind the stove. I called the fire department, grabbed the parakeet that was around the corner and exited the house to wait for the fire department. I stood on the front porch and watched for the trucks.

Soon the fire department truck could be seen coming down the road, but they didn’t slow down. They actually passed the house. As I started jumping and yelling for the trucks to return, they did turned around and came back. The firemen entered the house, pulled the stove from the wall and examined the damage. In reality, I really did put the fire out, but the fireman were quick to note that if it had been a electrical fire, throwing water on the flames would have been the worst thing to do. The first action should have been was to identify what is causing the fire. Therefore I was very lucky. So what did cause the fire?

The fire was caused by the years in the habit of throwing the pot holders to the area next to the stove. Mom kept the pot holders close to the stove for easy accessibility. When we were finished with the pot holder, instead of walking the few steps to return the item, we simply threw the pot holder to its home location. Unfortunately, some times the throw was not accurate and the pot holder fell behind the stove. After years of heating the oven, the temperature had gotten to be too much and the pot holders started to burn. That had been the fire – the pot holders. Now I was relieved but now I had to clean the mess behind the stove, since the firemen did not return the stove to its normal position.

As I escorted the firemen to the door, there were 10-12 men at the door looking in. I went to the second door, and again 10-12 different men at the door. The same was at all the doors and windows. Here I am in a mini dress and it seemed like 100 pair of eyes were staring at me. These men came from the “rifle range” a mile from the house. When they saw the fire truck go by, they had decided to follow in case they could have been of assistance with the fire. That was why there were so many men at the doors. Now I was scared. Not from any fire, but from all the men located at the parameter of the house. I was 19 years old and pretty, (if I do say so myself), and I am wearing a mini dress. To be honest, I was afraid of rape. In this time, society did not view a rape victim as a victim. She was asking for the crime to be committed against her. With this mini dress, I felt that I would be viewed by these men as a woman asking for sex and therefore becoming a victim of rape.

I was really, really scared. Even with the men gone, I was afraid that even one man would return. I started calling for help, but I couldn’t find anyone. I finally started calling friends of my parents. One friend came over. He had been friends with my parents for years. If fact he was a player in my experiences at the time of JFK’s assassination, but that is another story. I will call him OC in this story as I do not want to use names.

OC arrived shortly after I called. I explained the events surrounding the fire, and the men from the rifle range, and why I was scared. By the time he got there, I had cleaned the area behind the stove where the fire had been. OC helped me move the stove back into place. I thank him, and offered him a cup of coffee. I was sure that when he had finished his coffee, enough time would have gone by to ensure that I would have no unwelcome visitors from the rifle range.

He drank the cup of coffee, and started asking me personal questions, too personal for me to answer. He also had a strange look in his eyes and he was now someone to fear. How could I get him out of the house? I did ask him in and he was my parent’s close friend. He asked me to sit by him on the couch. I move to the far end, but soon he was sitting next to me, and touching my knee. His hand traveled up and down my leg and I was too nervous to scream. He sensed my fear and backed off slightly. Then he changed his strategy.

He said I looked tense and he would massage my neck. My neck was sore, so he preceded to massages my neck but he didn’t stop there. He now started to massage my back. Next thing I know, I am laying on my stomach, on the couch. OC was massaging my back over my clothing, and I was holding on to the hem of my skirt for dear life. As he massaged, he tried to get the dress to rise up revealing more skin, but I held the skirt down. He kept trying to get me to release the hold of my dress, but no way was that going to happen. It was my only active defense. My other defense is that he was a friend of my parents.

He finally left and I felt shaken. I never felt comfortable when he visited after this event. It happened that about 6 months later, he did try to rape me again. My mother, not realizing my feelings, forced me into a situation where I would be alone with OC again. He took this opportunity to force himself on me. I really don’t know how I defended myself, but at some point my knee hit in his private area with enough force to allow me to escape. I told him that I was had every intention to tell my parents, he replied “It was a good thing that I came to my senses”. I told my parents of his attempts to rape me, and his remake. He was never welcomed into their home again, and I never saw him again.

The morale is:
1) If you have a fire, of any kind, call the fire department. Don’t try to put the fire out yourself. You could make a bad situation worse.
2) Don’t wear anything that you don’t feel comfortable in. If you are comfortable in a mini dress or skirt, I am happy for you. If you are uncomfortable in any dress style, don’t wear it.
3) In the crime of rape, the victim is never asking to be a victim. If you are a victim, you did not cause this violence, the mind set of the abuser is at fault. Just remember the victim is just that, a victim.