Fire Breather Invades My Heat Wave Refuge.

I sure do seem to attract the unusual.

Fire breather Vincent Izzo does his stuff in
the middle of nowhere last week.

There I was during last week's hot spell at a secluded swimming hole near Bolton, Vermont. It's my favorite place in extremely hot weather.  Hardly anybody goes there, the water stays cold and the brook generates a cool breeze that bounces off the rocks and cools a person down no matter how high into the 90s the temperature is.

So I'm there, me and maybe a couple of other people, the water, lots of trees, nothing else.
Suddenly a gaggle of young people, probably in their 20s come in off the trail. They probably want to take a dip. Or not.

One of the young guys asks a person sitting on a rock if he can borrow his lighter. The smoker obliges. The young guy lights up a torch. He then takes a swig of some liquid and swishes it around his mouth. He holds his mouth near the torch and blows.

A huge burst of flames billows from the kid's mouth. Glad I had the camera.

So, in the middle of nowhere, with almost nobody around, a random person comes in and gives a fire breathing performance.

Our fire breather says his name is Vincent Izzo and he took up the activity as a hobby. You know, like stamp collecting and scrap booking. Only hotter.

Plus I wondered if this was the right kind of fun to have during the worst heat wave in eight years. But who am I to judge?

Izzo says he's honing his skills and hopes to offer more performances for hopefully paying crowds.

It's dangerous business, Izzo says, and I believe him. What if the fire blows in the wrong direction? Or flashes down into his lungs. He said he's already given himself chemical pneumonia once when he accidentaly ingested some of the ultra pure lamp oil he puts in his mouth to do the fire breathing.

If it gets hot again, I'll probably go to the same swimming hole. Just for the entertainment value. Next time, I might get a sword swallower. Or maybe Circ de Soleil.

You never know.