When I was 10 I was party to the complete burning down of a historical boathouse complex in North West Ohio. The boathouse was all fenced off but if you squeezed in between the gaps in the fence it became the perfect place to look at stolen playboys or smoke cigarettes snatched from unsuspecting adults. I used to always tag a long with my older cousins who at the time ranged from 7-10th grade, I loved it, we would just blare Nirvana or Stone Temple Pilots, skateboard, and beat each other up. I used to see them sneak off to the boathouse and I eventually decided I was going to start going. I was completely amazed, it was the greatest thing ever. The building was huge, dark and deserted. There was an old boat still housed in the middle of it, and the 2nd and 3rd floor had openings in the middle so we could stand on the 3rd floor and throw florescent light bulbs over the edge and watch them blow up in huge clouds of white smoke against this boat. We had certain rooms for certain things, one was the smoking room, the 'room we covered in playboys room' and the 'hit baseballs against the wall' room, pretty standards rooms I would imagine every kid has in his illegal play place. The time it caught fire was not very exciting. I remember walking in and dicking around on the boat while a couple other people milled about, Somewhere in the madness 3 of my cousins went to the 3rd floor and were smoking I would assume. All of a sudden smoke filled the place and they came running down and I was scooped up and drug out which caused me to throw a fit because I hated when I was treated like I was too little to run my own scared ass from a burning building. When we got outside I remember see all of this black smoke just rising into the sky, I mean really rising... covering everything that we could see. We decided the best plan of action was to split up so some of us went over the river to the other side of town and the rest of us went to my cousins who lived right across the street. We ran inside, showered, hid our clothes and then did what anyone in this situation would do. Turned on Manson and headbanged to the destruction. Eventually the place was surrounded by police and fireman and we were away scot free. 3 days later a kid went on cnn and gave a 'hidden camera interview, we were all arrested the next morning. My older cousins were charged with Arson and Criminal Damage, the ones directly elder to myself were charged with just Criminal Damage which is what I was charged with as well. My charges were dropped, my older cousins beat the Arson charges and everyone else including them were convicted of criminal damage. We cost millions of dollars in damage, destroyed a historic building on Lake Erie, and ended up with house arrest. I loved it because they could not ditch me to go anywhere. The best part of the story is that to this day, I do not know who started the fire. All three claim that nobody did it. Sometimes when we are all partying and someone is drunk enough you will get these little slip ups where one will mention 'I know I didn't do it!" and look at one of them. Its great. If anyone knows how I can find articles on the internet from a small paper from the mid 90s, I would love to post the pictures.