I was fortunate during my working years to have many good friends. One that I worked with in several locations around the world was a dear friend that I called The Bear. He didn’t look like a bear — he was a little on the stocky side, but something about the way he walked reminded me of a bear. So I always referred to him as The Bear.
Not too long after we had arrived in Manila, and were living in a temporary apartment, The Bear stopped to visit us for a few days on his way to Tokyo.
The temporary apartment wasn’t really set up much and Claire was hesitant to have “guests,” but since The Bear was a long-time good friend, she agreed we should have him for dinner. Since we weren’t settled, Claire decide to have I guess what would be considered maybe an Asian version of fondue. A neighbor in the apartment building loaned us a small electric hibachi that was placed in the center of the table. The idea was that everyone would cook their own beef that had been sliced into individual “servings.”
When we got the hibachi, it turned out that it would only operate on 220 volts. Our apartment was wired for 120 volts. But not to worry — the neighbor gave us a small transformer to convert 120 to 220 to operate the hibachi. He also gave us a flimsy extension cord so we could get everything connected. Using the extension cord, we were able to set up the hibachi in the center of the table, by placing the transformer under one of the chairs and then running the extension cord from the transformer to the wall.
We had invited The Bear and another couple that knew him from a previous overseas tour. We had drinks — if I remember, out of some make-shift “glasses” from the kitchen. We sat down for dinner and it just happened that The Bear’s chair was the one with the transformer underneath. We were all having a good time and catching up on the latest from everyone. I began to smell something burning, but the conversation continued and The Bear was talking about when we were in Vietnam together. I noticed there were wisps of smoke that looked like it was coming out of The Bear’s head. Then there were billows of smoke seeming to come out of his head. Suddenly, The Bear jumped up as the seat of his chair became hot. The transformer (beneath The Bear’s chair) had become overloaded, and slowly caught fire. We quickly extinguished the small fire and we all had a good laugh.
It was hard after that night, not to refer to my friend as the “Burning Bear.”
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