The campfire at deer camp was never just a fire. It was the place where friends and family gathered, where stories were traded like currency, and where the night always seemed to settle a little softer around us.
When I was a kid, I’d roll into camp late on Friday nights after football games, still smelling like sweat and grass, headlights cutting through the dark pines. Some nights the whole crew would still be awake, silhouettes glowing in the firelight. I’d jump right in, telling them how the game went while they leaned back in their chairs, nodding along, waiting for their turn to share the stories from the woods. Those were the nights when laughter carried through the trees and the fire cracked like it was part of the conversation.
Other nights, though, camp would be quiet. Everyone already asleep, the fire burned low, just embers breathing in the dark. I’d sit there alone for a while, letting the heat soak into my hands, listening to the night settle around me. Those quiet moments were their own kind of story — the kind you don’t tell out loud, but you remember anyway.
That fire pit saw everything.
Thanksgiving dinners with plates balanced on our knees.
Birthdays where the flames lit up smiling faces.
Hard nights when we gathered to talk about the ones we’d lost, letting the fire say the things we couldn’t.
It was there for all of it — the good, the bad, and everything in between.
That old fire pit will never know what it meant to me. But if it could talk… the stories it would tell would be legendary.