tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47882428589917848602024-03-13T18:11:42.943-07:00Out of the FireManzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-60644448966770322732017-03-24T17:15:00.002-07:002017-03-24T17:15:23.775-07:00
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">45
Years of My Words Away </span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">by Conrad Levasseur</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So
how do I write about something</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">that
took 45 years of my words & art away?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Journals,
articles, poems, drawings, paintings, manuscripts,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">travel
sketches, a library & research files, every letter</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">and
post card from the three kids, Margaret, family, friends.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
gold rush mine of memory</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">that
I wanted to dig into in retirement</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
shovel, rake, sift, pan and separate</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">all
the nuggets from the general debris.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">After
the fire…..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">only
the rammed earth adobe walls</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">still
standing.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Everything
else melted,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">bent,
pulverized into</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">soft,
fine ash.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even
the half dozen</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">cords
of wood</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">in
the open field</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">that
were chain sawed, split, stacked</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">neatly
in geometric rows</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">patiently
waiting through</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">the
drought dried summer simmering heat</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
perform their duty </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">in
the Vermont Casting wood stove…….</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">as
soon as the first beautiful</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">silver
frost wolves of winter</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">came
running down</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">the
slopes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">of
The Sierra</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">now
sit</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">but
a handful</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">of
delicate </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">fine
ash.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
power of the flame</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
totally dissolve</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">a
refrigerator,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">liquify
glass</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">and
melt machines.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">All
those hundreds of hours</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">spent
getting beyond clearance</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">with
the undergrowth…..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">inching
my way through</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">oak,
manzanita, cedar, pine, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">miners
misery, poison oak, star thistle</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">NOW…..
BEYOND--BEYOND clearance.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Every
nook, valley, slope, hill</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">creek,
drainage on the acreage</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">nakedly
exposed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">beyond
all my years</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">of
intimacy with them.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
were some ghost books</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">that
lay on their backs,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">binders
spread open,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">at
a hundred and eighty degrees,</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">an
accordion of pages</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">eerily
beckoning</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
be picked up</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">and
played</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">one
last time…..</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">collapsing
with their final breath</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">when
delicately touched</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">by
a finger cautiously seeking</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">that
final secretive tale.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Somehow
family history</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">still
clung to the walls……</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">reminding
me of archeological sites</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
visited around the world.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
first thought </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">of
leaving the walls</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
be buried</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">by
moss, lichens, vines…..</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">a
new forest monument</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
my family living</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">for
a short period together</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">at
the edge of the grid</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">my
mother's ashes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">spread
around the property</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">weaving
a genetic thread</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">from
the Old World to The New.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
Margaret and I drove back the first time</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">and
got out of the car……both of us thought</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">one
of us whispered, "The silence…….</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">it's
so quiet here".</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unimaginably
quiet……</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">beyond
the cherished silence</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">that
had nurtured us</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">all
these years.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">No
tracks of squirrel, skunk, raccoon, bear, coyote,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">mountain
lion, wild turkey, wild pig, dog, cat.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">NO
BIRD SONGS.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">One
set -- one set</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">out
of dozens before</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">of
deer tracks</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">clearly
imprinted</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">in
the ash sealed road.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
course,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">the
walls did have to come down</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">the
land did have to be cleared</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">leaving
an open, empty field.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
haunted forest?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Or,
a fresh, new </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Field
of Dreams?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yet to be
written.</span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-31636028876944484802017-01-13T09:29:00.001-08:002017-01-13T09:29:51.658-08:00
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Retirement</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Pam S. Dunn</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sarah and her husband were looking at
retirement property on California’s central coast when they heard the Butte
fire had jumped from Amador to Calaveras County. When they left Thursday
morning, they thought the fire was out, but by Thursday evening the town of
Mokelumne Hill had been evacuated. By Friday, they began making phone calls,
and Sarah’s friends<span style="color: #18376a;"> </span>told her that their
neighborhood was in flames.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After years of working in stressful
jobs, they were living the back-to-the-land existence they’d always talked
about. At first, she had the energy of a Gold Rush settler. She and her husband
whacked and burned, recovered from poison oak rashes, dealt with star thistle,
chaparral, and an overgrown ten acres that needed reclaiming. When it snowed in
those days, it seemed a mere skiff, a dusting on the ground that vanished the
next day. They’d remained full of rural romanticism. Washing lettuce leaves one
at a time. Swiping earwigs and sow bugs down the drain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In later years, she’d proven not up to
the toil. Everything began to weigh on her. Their particular elevation seemed
to be nice only in two seasons, spring and fall. Lately, you could snap your
fingers and miss the mountain’s golden poppies and the fall’s autumn colors.
During the summer fires, she drove though billowing smoke and hot ash, flames
on both sides of the highway. In the winter, inching along S bends around
wrecked and stranded vehicles, she feared that sudden slip that would match the
skip in her heart. The loading of wood into the stove, vacuuming spider webs,
canning garden vegetables, and listening to O.E.S. bulletins about the latest
wildfire or winter storm—it hit her in a horrible sort of way that there was no
point to any of it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The last
time the power went out<span style="color: #18376a;">, h</span>er husband carried
the flashlight, revealing an aged, craggy face she didn’t recognize. The
flashlight’s beam played around the room, bringing out the shapes of things. Then
he went out to start the generator that ran the pump and refrigerator. She
realized if he died, she would be cut off, helpless. It must have been at that
moment, when she began to doubt their retirement plans. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In September, it was over one hundred
on California’s central coast. They’d looked at several retirement communities
that day. Back in the hotel, she googled the latest Butte fire results. Fire
had a different language. Containment in percentages. Fire lines. Nights you
prayed for cool downs so the firefighters could get an edge. This time, the fire
was raging in the Jesus Maria canyon—moving so fast and hot, the flames were
chasing people from their homes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On television they watched firestorms
that looked like tornados. Homes they recognized burning, trees exploding like
bombs. When they arrived home on Saturday, gray smoke and hot ash billowed
across the road, the sky streaked red and black. Fire trucks parked everywhere
along the main highway. Helicopters carrying water buckets churned overhead.
The road going to their home was blocked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Did you have animals?” the Red Cross
worker asked them. “No, just stray cats,” Sarah answered. Both of the cats
they’d brought with them from civilization were gone now. One got old and died
and the neighbors’ dogs killed the other one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The next day they told their insurance
company they had no idea if they would be coming back to anything. Then Sarah
and her husband went shopping for a cell phone and clothes. Everything they
owned was in their suitcase. Oddly enough, they had their swimming suits.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The few friends they contacted
reported the same thing: their homes were gone. They began to fear the worst.
They ate at cafes and watched the television hoping for some change that would
slow the fire’s path. Of course, their particular area had weather cycles that
were impossible to predict. Five years of hot weather and drought when the
foothills went up like flaming fireballs and the rainy seasons, torrential
rains, impassible roads, and floods in the lowlands. This last season with no
spring and a foot of snow in April. At the motel, she thought about pulling the
covers over her head until the fire burned itself out, when she might venture
forth again without this painful fear lodging in her chest.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was a week before they were finally
allowed onto the property.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Along Mountain Ranch Road, the land
was burned, homes were gone. The town itself had survived. Their hope began to
build. And then three miles beyond, they entered the canyon areas. The
blackened trees still standing. Homes turned to ash. At the end of the gravel
drive, sitting on metal rims, their truck looked like a heap of junk, the tires
vaporized. The storage sheds and pump house were nothing but rubble. Sarah was
too stunned to speak. The accumulations of a lifetime were gone. She could make
out parts of things: the couch’s springs, the wood stove, a hulk that might
have been the kitchen range. Everything thing else had been turned to ash or was
buried underneath the ashes. Charred and blackened, the wood stove had been
hurled to the ground.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">They
looked at the outline of their house.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“It’s
burned down to the J-bolts sticking out of the foundation,” her husband said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She stood looking at all of her world.
She tasted dust and smelled the burn. And yet, oddly, she recalled why they had
bought the place, what it had meant to her. She began to cry and her husband
came to her and hugged her close.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They would start over.</span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-68902556717214358772017-01-12T16:27:00.000-08:002017-01-12T16:27:04.399-08:00
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">2015 Butte Fire legacy</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">by</span></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pru Starr</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">my jeweler friend no longer works</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">a blobmelt inventory breaks her heart</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">incomprehensible to those who weren’t evacuated</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">transform an ugly story twenty minutes before the house burns down</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">only rubble survives its raw beauty</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">cherry-pick my jewelry box when my brain says</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">“I’m coming back”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">who wears melted gold around her neck when its clasp no longer
opens?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">what does the new back look like</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">how does a dish cope in a new shape</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">will the teacup hang without its handle</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">rusty hacksaw suspends in burnt wood</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">where is the bed when only its twisted box springs remain?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">remember heat snap shards in gray ash dirt</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">water turns to mud where there was once a garden</span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-34750966186526045352017-01-11T10:19:00.002-08:002017-01-11T10:19:17.378-08:00
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Our Mothers’ Lamps
Burned Up in the Butte Fire</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">By Donna
Becker</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I like to think of the lamp</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">that stood so many years</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">at my mother’s bedside,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">the red flower painted </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sears reproduction</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">of a kerosene lamp </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">from an earlier age.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I think it reminded my mother</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">of her aunt’s nights </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">in the cold farmhouse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The lamp found no place in my home</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">but happily, it did in yours.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That lamp in your cabin,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">in your new quieter life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Just right,” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">you said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Your two lamps were</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">of fine pale green porcelain</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">painted and gilded </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">with more delicate flowers,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">silken shades.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">One sent to the restorer</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">at great cost</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">after the cousin’s dog</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">knocked it into pieces </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">on the floor.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These lamps of our mothers’ evenings,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">which they loved for the</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">glowing prettiness. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Their hands each night</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">turned the knobs</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">to darkness </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">in a way </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">we love to remember.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Oct 2105</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-2200848347442304542017-01-11T10:07:00.001-08:002017-01-11T10:07:14.207-08:00
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">California Fires, 2015</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Donna Becker</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sun through smoke</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">makes a pallid orange shadow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sunrises and sunsets, which might be glorious,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">are a sinister pink,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Each leaf, usually a gift of green and grace,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">is now only desiccated brown fuel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The thin smell of smoke </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">stops me,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">makes me alert like an animal,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">smoke carried for miles,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">or maybe nearer?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The sound of each plane and helicopter</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">a possible harbinger.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tiny fragments of black ash</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">on the wind -</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">someone’s home burned and scattered, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">flying in pieces high in the atmosphere</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">landing here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The breeze warm on my skin </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">shakes the dry leaves in warning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">September 2015</span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-39559667538399260262017-01-11T09:57:00.002-08:002017-01-11T09:57:56.773-08:00
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Make It
Rain</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
by Jerry Allen Zellers<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dedicated to my dad,
Scott Zellers, the bravest man I know<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was a hot, dry year in a
long line of hot, dry years stretching back through the past decade, and we
stood at the peak of a fierce drought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The priests of meteorology were predicting heavy rainfall for the
winter, and we prayed to El Nino for salvation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I took a dive into the pool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Floating on my back, I gazed up at the sun through the fingers of a
mighty oak tree. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was on the deck, facing
westward, when I caught my first glimpse of the smoke - a thin, grey column
rising small but ominous over the ridge against the clear blue sky. A column
thickening and turning black before my eyes, reaching from beyond the
hills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sent a text message to Dad’s
phone with a picture, getting Mom’s response that they were on their way home,
about five hours out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then she called. “The fire is
on Butte Mountain, so as long as it’s on the other side of the river we should
be safe.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“It looks so close.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“If you want, you can call
Cal-Fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ve probably got a lot of
planes out right now, so they should know what’s going on.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Alright, I’ll do that.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Butte Mountain is about ten
miles northwest as the crow flies, on the other side of the river canyon
dividing Calaveras from Amador County.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cal-Fire
confirmed what Mom had said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taking one
last look at the smoke and mounting the quad with a jump, I drove back to the
house, my mind spinning like a cog seeking broken teeth. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lunchbox, my sister Rachelle’s boyfriend,
arrived. He described what he saw, an isolated but burgeoning fire in the
canyon spewing copious smoke and the early stages of aircraft
intervention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sky was turning red
and yellow as we spoke, with the sun falling and the smoke rising.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I caught my first whiff of brimstone, carried
on a bitter and merciless wind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The power went out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I called Mom again; who told me the fire had
jumped the river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the last rays of
the sun stretched futilely over the land, I took the quad to the hilltop again,
beholding a terrible sight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Flames were coming out of the
canyon, sinuous, undulating yellow teeth devouring green earth in the shadows
of the setting sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A choral drone
echoed inside my skull, dreadful, as if the flames spoke – as if they were
alive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mom and Dad got home at a
little past nine and we shifted gears. They had seen the fire coming up the
canyon as they came down the mountain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
glow emanated over the ridge, and the air was rich with the scent of
carbon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad took the truck out on the back road,
presumably to shut off the water to the forty acres and check the status of the
fire. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We shuffled and struggled to prioritize
by lamp and candlelight, stampeding through the living room/kitchen chaotically
like servers in a restaurant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom
suddenly stopped, smiled, and pointed at something.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A praying mantis was meditating
on the couch, still and chill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom gazed
at it with unabashed wonder, as if, for a moment, everything she and Dad had
worked for over the past thirty years wasn’t in the path of destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a snapshot of hope in a montage of
futility.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I tried to catch the four cats,
starting with Runt, one of the oldest and most docile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom brought Mr. Brown Pants, one of two baby
goats, from the upper pasture. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I grabbed my guitar and two
boxes packed with Buddhist texts I acquired working for a non-profit Tibetan
book bindery. I gathered enough clothing and hygienic products to last a week
or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dad had pulled the truck up next
to the gate to the horses’ pasture and hitched up its trailer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom and I hauled the unwieldy cage with the
cats from the front yard, stumbling and cursing with them all the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I returned to the house to finish packing as
Mom helped Dad with the horses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few
minutes later, Rachelle, Lunchbox and I lined up with our cars behind the
trailer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“We’ll meet at Raley’s!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom shouted, driving the truck loaded down
with dogs in the cab, the goat and cats in the bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no room for Cyclops and Baby Bee,
the oldest of the horses, in the trailer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Separated from his family, faced with bewildering abandonment, Cyclops
let out a heartbreaking scream, and my hair stood on end.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mom led Rachelle and me down
the driveway to the highway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We turned
right, bypassing the fire by crossing the canyon into Amador at a higher
elevation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad had announced his plans
to stay, so he wasn’t with us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad was
gearing up to face the dragon, and no one could stop him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t leaving him, so I pulled over at the
turnout before the canyon, turned around and drove back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I saw Dad in the front yard
with Lunchbox in the heavy rain of ashes. Dad gave me an inscrutable look as I
approached.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His dark blue eyes made me
flinch, and his red skin, burnt from decades of working outdoors, was a
constant reminder of how lazy I was in comparison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His head, large and round, sat on wide
shoulders, and his biceps were the size of oak tree limbs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As with Mom, I felt insufficient in his
presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His gaze then turned to the
west, and he said, “Basically, the fire is here.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dad commanded Lunchbox and me
to hose down everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“See that leaf
pile right there?” he said to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Drench it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lunchbox took the
fire hose and walked around the house, spraying it down over and over
again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I soaked everything in sight into
the early hours of the morning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I slept a few hours until
sunrise and started in on moving dry rotted wood away from the house to the
front yard and soaking it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sky took
on a deep reddish-yellow hue as smoke grew closer and thicker, blotting out the
sun. When I saw a Cal Fire plane bank sharply overhead like a fighter jet out
of World War II, I imagined the pilot shouting to me, “What are you doing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Get out of here!” The air was bitter and
coarse, like burnt toast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We couldn’t
stay.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I had no room left in my car when
Dad came across the front yard with his Fender American-made sunburst
Stratocaster, an electric guitar he’d bought when we were kids and all talking
about forming a family band.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You got
room for this?” he asked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I’ll make room,” I promised,
and I did.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We departed in a convoy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I visualized the fire ripping through the house,
the teakettle flying through the kitchen and the granite floors rising and
separating with the heat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I visualized
the chickens jumping from the roost in flames and Cyclops and Baby Bee running
through the pasture, dodging falling trees, terrified. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We took CA-49 to the vista
point at the top of the hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could
see smoke rising in thick black columns all along the river canyon, overtaking
the sky. It was surreal that part of that smoke could be from our house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We headed down the hill to our people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We began to put the pieces
together. We could now trace the fire’s growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By the end of the day on Wednesday, it had grown to 1,200 acres, and had
jumped to 2,600 by 6:00 Thursday morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By 7:00, it had broken 4,000 acres.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It doubled, and then tripled, to 14,000 acres as firefighters struggled
to squelch spot fires igniting constantly ahead of the blaze on bad back roads
and uneven terrain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the early afternoon, the
entire town of San Andreas was evacuated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The fire had torn its way through half of Calaveras County overnight,
coming to knock at the door of the county seat. Many evacuation orders were
lifted shortly after, but it reached an arm southward toward Angels Camp, where
many residents and their livestock had fled to the fairgrounds serving as the
main evacuation center of Calaveras.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mokelumne Hill, Glencoe, West Point, and Wilseyville were all evacuated
as the fire stretched east and west along the canyon, and the population of the
park surged, with tents popping up on any available patch of grass.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The next morning, we packed up,
cleaned out, and left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were scorch
marks on the land right outside of Jackson, then some more by Electra Road near
Butte Mountain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I crossed the river and
ascended the hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coming up on Moke
Hill, I could see into the canyon, stripped bare and ravaged.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What do you do when the fire’s
coming at you?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You crank that valve, raise
that nozzle, and make it rain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Make it rain.</span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-15818376230007353552017-01-11T09:44:00.002-08:002017-01-11T09:44:58.929-08:00
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Facing the
Monster </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">by Rebecca Fischer </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
billow of smoke towered over the horizon. Even miles away at Camanche, the
plume was impressive, swirling, and ominous. Destructive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
“It looks like a monster,” I told my uncle, who was sitting beside me in his
old white Ford.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
“It is a monster,” was his simple reply.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A few
days prior to this conversation, my uncle and I, with the help of one of our
cowhands, had been working our cattle down by Camanche. We had stopped at El
Torero in Burson for lunch. Sitting there looking out the window, I thought
about the fire, the smoke. Despite our work, the fire was the main topic of
conversation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
Then the call came from my dad. He had gotten word that the fire had spread to
Jesus Maria, and could get to Hawver Road. He had cattle out there. We better
go get them, as a precautionary measure.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
Since my dad was still on his way, we finished our lunch, but ate quickly. My
uncle called a couple of his friends. “Looks like we’re headed out there,” he
said to a machine. Would they get the message in time?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
Hawver Road got its name from my grandmother’s family; they had a ranch out
there. It was never my favorite road. The break at the top of the hill—where it
drops down into that narrow, steep, jagged section of road, rock to the left
and air to the right— terrified me when I was a child. It was more terrifying
that day, not because of the fire, oddly enough, but because of the traffic.
Evacuees were racing out of there, since Hawver Road is one of the few safe
exits from Jesus Maria. Meeting all these cars head on with a gooseneck, a
livestock trailer pulled by a truck hampered our trek down. We were in their
way, and they were in ours. Congested.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
There was a log in the road, poorly cut out of the way in a turn. We took the
turn extra wide and managed to inch past it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Finally I
made it down to the corral, the smoke billowing above me on the ridge. I was
entranced by it as I swung up into my saddle. For a moment, I felt my
insignificance in comparison. This thing could swallow me whole and spit me
out, horse and all, charred and ruined. Yet the other cowhand and I chatted
about the fire somewhat amiably, as we stared into the eyes of the smoke. He
believed the smoke was misleading, that the fire was further away than it
looked. I prayed the cattle weren’t going to be difficult to get in the
trailer. They like to run away wildly from the corral. I never look forward to
working with them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
That day, though, my dad’s cattle were cooperative. They were gathered together
on one side of the hilly field, and they trotted right along fence. One of our
friends arrived, and on foot walked out into the field to turn the cattle into
the pen, and for once they obliged. We had them in within minutes of arriving,
something that had never happened before.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
There were about fifty head of cattle altogether, plus the horses; two trips
worth with only three trailers. My uncle hadn’t heard from his friends, and we weren’t
sure if they were coming. Hauling them out was a good half-hour drive one way,
especially with the traffic. A plane roared over us, close enough I felt like I
could reach out and touch it. I looked at the remaining cattle in the pen. I
wondered if we had the time to come back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
We loaded what we could and headed out. Unfortunately, the best place to turn
around to drive back to San Andreas is up the road, toward Jesus Maria. My
uncle and dad went up, but our friend, who was hauling the horses in his
smaller trailer, figured out a way to turn around inside the corral.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
As we drove up that narrow part in the road I don’t like, we almost collided
with our other two friends, both pulling trailers. They had gotten my uncle’s
message. We took advantage of what little space the side of the road offers and
pulled off to let them by. I jumped out and ran to the first truck, to help
them load and tell them how to turn around in the corral. And with that, I
descended back into the burning pit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
As we reached that tight turn with the log, an old van came blazing up, and
barely avoided a collision with us. This was good and bad; good, because we
didn’t have an accident; bad, because now he was in the space we needed to take
the turn wide and miss the log. Inching by didn’t work this time. The log
caught the fender of the trailer and bent it. We could hear the tire rub it as
we continued down Hawver Road. Miraculously, it didn’t pop the tire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
We met another vehicle shortly thereafter, a smaller red car that refused to
back up and scooch to the side. Our friend managed to maneuver around the
stubborn driver, his agitation growing from his annoyance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
At last, we made it back to the hot corral. The two trailers were just enough,
and we loaded the remaining cattle. The trailer got caught on something again,
this time on the corral, and broke one of the boards.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
On our way out, I rode with our other friend, since he was the last out of the
corral, and I had to close the gate for him. He lifted a small cooler bag from
the back seat and offered me a cold drink. I hadn’t noticed how parched I was
until I was guzzling it. The mirror temperature gauge read 107 degrees
Fahrenheit. I was sweating, and became aware of how badly I stunk with body
odor and smoke. As a bit of embarrassment rose in me, I scolded myself. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Now is not the time to be self-conscious,
Becca</i>. I didn’t envy the firefighters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
As we drove up Hawver Road away from the corral, my eyes finally settled on a
ragged old house, tucked up on the hillside. Tin roof, aged wood, chipping red
paint. My great-grandparents had lived there; my grandmother and her sister
grew up there. I felt my heart twist. A piece of my history. That house had
survived so many long years. Would it survive the night? Another plane swooped
over the ridge, this time depositing the bright red retardant right there, over
the pine treetops. The fire had been closer than I thought. We opened a wire
gate by the cattle guard, so that animals that had been turned loose could
escape, if needed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
Back at the top of the hill, some evacuees had congregated to smoke pot and
watch the hills burn, parking on both sides of the narrow road. It was
difficult to squeeze our way between them with a trailer full of cattle. I
posted about it later on Facebook. There is a time and place for everything,
but I don’t think that was one of them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
My uncle slept in his truck that night, out where we took the cattle. Even
though we were quite a distance away, he got worried the fire would jump
Highway 49 and spread toward us again. We no longer questioned the spread of
the fire. Even miles away, the flames lit up the night sky with an orange glow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
A few days later, when the fire was finally out and the roads opened, my family
went out there to assess the damage. Aside from a couple of fences and some boards
on the corral, the fire had moved around the property, the barn, the house.
Everything stood intact. We questioned why that was and finally decided it was
because the cattle had eaten the grass down. The retardant helped. But still,
no ember floated in, alighted on the aged wood, and set it ablaze. Not one, and
it could have, easily. The place had been surrounded by fire. Out of all the
houses, why not this house? We had a cousin stop by our main house, to tell us with
tears in his eyes that he had lost his home. There are many stories like his.
To this day, people are in tents. Others are selling their scorched property.
Only some have rebuilt. And then there’s this house. Tired, but unscathed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
It feels greedy to be thankful.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-47485199288598938392016-12-29T10:14:00.000-08:002016-12-29T10:14:18.876-08:00
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Smoke and Mirrors</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">By Kat Everitt</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">trapped in this house upcountry for days</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">car packed with only the essentials </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">only these raggedy memories that will fit</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">lord knows we cried so carefully</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">for we were not on fire </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">of our old neighbors in The Meadows</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">had gone down from the mountain </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">smoke. smoke. smoke. for days </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">pale yellow skies in smoke. silence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">the silence is silver in the smoke and</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">like bees, we are gathering what honey</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">the sheriff's department, "Should we leave?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Is the Evacuation Advisement in place?..."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">just like bees leaving the hive in this chaos,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">fearful of the smoke-oils on the mirrors</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">all around us, reflecting our slim courage</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">leaving in our dreams. leaving for reals</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">because we can, because, we still can</span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-66029757058089173782016-12-12T09:57:00.001-08:002016-12-12T09:57:55.223-08:00<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Cate Culver</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am an artist, a painter whose art burned up in the homes
of my Mountain Ranch community.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I create art to lift the world. I didn’t always know this.
People who bought my art and took it to their homes told me this. “Every
morning as I sit and put on my shoes, I rest my eyes on the flowing stream you
painted. The art is above my bed. The water flowing over rocks, grounds me
before I start my day.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another owner of my art tells me, ”Your painting of the red
beets and flowing green leaves is in my kitchen. The colors are so vibrant,
when I am tired somehow your art keeps me going.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To “Lift the World” is not like painting angels or sunrises.
It is more like a piece of art that smiles back. It is one of life’s simple
pleasures that feed you daily. It gives the viewer a lift in spirit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When my art is destroyed, the smile is gone. Its positive
energy has been transformed. Where did it go? Up in smoke that spreads across
the earth and is gone. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It saddens me that this original creation is no more, and I
cannot make another that is the same.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However my loss is small, others lost their past. </div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-22395360597591017432016-11-09T11:06:00.002-08:002016-11-09T11:06:58.428-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Simple Cup<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By Monika Rose<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">So much depends upon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A vessel once, its handle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A delicate, curved arc
with<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Someone fingering the
glaze<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">As tea sloshes into a
saucer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I wonder about fingers
that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Reach into cold ash and find
partial form<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Body tunneled and caved
in, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Missing a center, then
remember <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">An action of lifting, then
setting down<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">This relic of embodiment,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Still, the memories in the
cabinet silent<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">And stories at the table
resound<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Around breakfast on coffee
mornings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Steaming cocoa afternoons<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Chamomile tea evenings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">If you look closely at the
melted glass<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">There on the handle, a
ghost of fire appears<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">An O of surprise, caught
in not a scream,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">But a wry twist, a grimace<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Its spirit snagged into
revelation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Once I see the ghostly apparition<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">It will not tear away from
imagination,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">An echo of usefulness,
haunting my very being<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">My hands surround the
fragment, fingers tingle, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Ache to complete the
broken circle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-4996946723939896172016-11-09T11:00:00.002-08:002016-11-09T11:00:52.009-08:00<div style="border-bottom: solid #4F81BD 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent1; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 4.0pt 0in;">
<h1>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Highway
26 Revisited<o:p></o:p></span></b></h1>
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By Constance J. Corcoran.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Partially extracted and revised from the book, <span class="MsoBookTitle">Gumption;
a grandmother’s story</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>©
Constance J. Corcoran, 2013, Rev. 2014.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lulu
press.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Eight black and white miles of skeleton-treed road wind up
the ridge south of the river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Charcoal
landscape starts at Happy Valley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
ruins of Boston Yale Ranch are exposed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>An old cowhand’s cabin survives where the water ditch used to
cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Places I knew as Lawson’s and
Robinson’s are surrounded by stark black ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Past the cow pond and charred pasture, I pull
into a burnt dirt driveway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Wet ash makes my eyes run. Grandma’s house is marked by a melted
refrigerator, tangled bedsprings and foundation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Up the hill, strands of wire dangle from charcoal
posts that once framed my uncle’s dog kennels. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Through a tangle of leafy branches, I see my childhood home.
It is layered with different versions of siding now, and raised up on a real
foundation, but the windows are in the same places as the pictures and my
memories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two old stumps were linden trees
that suspended my rope swing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fresher
cuts made days ago saved the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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The homeowner stands in her open doorway on the phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My family built these
houses in 1948, </i>I explain<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. I had to
see it.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sure, take a look</i>,
she walks with me, gracious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We could never find out which house was
built first.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is eager to hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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*************************<o:p></o:p></div>
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We told the story over and over my whole life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our family came to California after the war
for warmer weather and jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before I
was a year old, Mom’s brothers and her mother migrated from Galesburg, Illinois,
where they were all born and raised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While working at Mare Island, Dad met a man who said there were jobs in
the saw mill at Wilseyville, in the heart of the Sierra Nevada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, we followed the Mokelumne River through
the Delta into Calaveras County’s foothills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Local rancher Carl Dell’Orto sold Dad and Mom’s brother Dick
four acres from a corner of his winter pastureland east of Moke Hill in an area
known as Rich Gulch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had been a
prosperous mining camp in the late 1850’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They paid $200 over time from their wages at Associated Lumber and Box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Dad and the uncles brought scrap lumber from the mill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They salvaged iron from an abandoned gold
mine near our property to make plumbing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They witched for water and then blasted a well, using old dynamite
they’d found under a miner’s cabin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Greenhorns!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know how we survived</i>, said my
uncle.<o:p></o:p></div>
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While the grown-ups built, my brother Johnny and I collected
rusty square-headed nails that sifted up from the red dust, evidence that our
homestead once had been a stage coach stop. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Our house was nearest the highway, now named the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stephen P. Teale Memorial Highway</i> in
honor of our family doctor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doc Teale,
who later became a State Senator, used to stop by the house to check up on my
mother when she was pregnant with my baby brother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I watched the ash grow on the end of his
cigar as he bent over Mom’s belly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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My older brother and I shared bunk beds in the back porch,
where Mom read to us every night and Johnny sang songs he made up while trying
to fall asleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, Dad added a deck which
extended along the gully side of the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After my brother Chris was born, the deck was closed in with a wall of
windows. It served first as a dining room and finally my room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom and Dad slept off the ever-changing
combination living-dining-kitchen area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walls
went up, walls came down to make larger or smaller rooms.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Carl got Dick a ditch-tender job at Camp Four off Lower
Dorray Road, just up the Highway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
pay included a cabin, living quarters for Dick and Grandma until their house
was built.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grandma hauled buckets of
water from the ditch for bathing and cooking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She washed her clothes in it, hanging wet laundry to dry on a Manzanita
bush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was fifty-two and had never
lived outside Galesburg, with its Victorian houses, green lawns and town
square. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We had to pack in</i>,
said Uncle Dick, s<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">upplies, food,
everything</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">There was only a narrow dirt path from the road to the cabin.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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The trail wound down the mountain through dense chaparral,
past the water ditch to the Mokelumne River far below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Lower Dorray Road is red with fire retardant today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the first time I’ve been able to see
the river from here.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Uncle Dick built his and Grandma’s house across the lower
end of the gulch, a drainage that cut our four-acres in two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He added a footbridge across <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wet Gulch, </i>so-named for the muddy slough
it became during rainy season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In summer
Wet Gulch baked to hard clay and we made tunnels in the chest-high wheat
grass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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A tall stand of Scotch thistles grew along our approach to
the footbridge, near the outhouse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people
deliberately add it to rock gardens for the large purple flower, but those
thorny leaves had a real bite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All I see
in them is the outhouse smell.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Uncle George built a square, white house with wrap-around
porch directly across the upper gully from us. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We sent messages back and forth to our cousins
on a pulley clothesline that extended from our back stoop across to their porch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That house was replaced some time ago by a
newer one, built by a stranger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It too
has survived the fire.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Twice a year I ran to the highway to watch cowboys driving Carl’s
herd from winter pastures to the high country in spring and down again in the
fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the herd was pastured next to
us I was soothed to sleep by the clanking of cowbells.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Two Cypress trees rose fields away on our southwest horizon,
marking the gates of an old pioneer cemetery on a property we knew as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lockheed’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></i>The buildings had burned long before and the people left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We enjoyed picking from their apple trees in
fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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I thought Grandma’s house was the nicest on the
homestead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had a pitched roof and
front and back porches. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was painted light
yellow, a reminder of her grandparents’ Victorian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grandma would sit in her rocker with a
crocheted afghan across her shoulders, while visitors shared a small sofa or
claimed the overstuffed chair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her own grandmother’s
mahogany spinet desk and a music box were treasured family heirlooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Seth Thomas mantle clock softly gonged the
hour as we studied <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scrabble</i> letters
or worked a jigsaw puzzle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An oval braid
rug warmed her knotty pine floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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While washing supper dishes, Grandma stood at her kitchen
window to watch the sun set over the pond, listening to classical music,
smoking her Raleigh cigarettes that she <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">did
not inhale</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Afterward, Grandma and I
walked across Carl’s pasture to the pond and back, taking her daily <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">constitutional</i>, with her cat and her Airedale
Koty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She liked to pretend she hated the
cat but we couldn’t go without him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes we walked further, following the dirt road to a hunter’s cabin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mom used to drive my brothers and me down the lower Ponderosa
Road, near Robinson’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She took our old
Chevy while Dad was at work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
four-wheel drive needed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In August we
picked blackberries at a wide bend in the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I learned to swim under the bridge on the Mokelumne River, just above
the dam on Electra Road, right about where the fire started.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw a picture taken after the fire:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the boards were gone from the bridge deck.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When Uncle Dick married, he sold the yellow house and the
family came together for one last construction project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We built Grandma a small cabin on our side of
the gully, just behind our house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My job
was sitting on the saw horse to hold boards steady while Dad cut, or walking
under the raised floor to pick up nails for reuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I even got to pound nails in some of the
floorboards until they saw how many dents I made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mom said that house was the last straw--she thought it was
the worst of all the houses we built.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was my favorite project, because I was old enough to participate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cab of a truck carcass now covers its sooty
remains, bulldozed there during the fire fight.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By 1959 saw mills in the foothills were struggling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad’s job at Associated came to an end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We left the family compound for the suburbs
of Sacramento, where there was work in the aerospace industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a lifetime since I left Rich Gulch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Before the fire, our homestead had become littered with rusty
vehicles, broken appliances and cast-offs from a succession of occupants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An oleander thicket along the highway hid the
houses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t had this good a look
in years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now a seared landscape reveals
too much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The property is too
clean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Views across the county are too
vast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cypress trees no longer mark an
old pioneer cemetery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My house has lost
its family.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-57585122049651250392016-11-09T10:53:00.000-08:002016-11-09T10:53:25.240-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<img src="webkit-fake-url://363719dc-8de0-4f1c-a321-1f9acfa6b1d6/application.pdf" /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Out of the Fire, the Sea<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By Monika Rose<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">So much transformation in
once-cooking vessels, oven-safe, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">After the fire passed them
over, cooking them into sea creatures<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A Corningware lid, sea
slug of sorts, slips off the plate<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Caught in a ripple of
escape, in mid-wriggle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The slug, now a ray, an on
its underside, a hint of mussel shell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A conch once a bowl, buffeted
by flamewater, collapses unto itself,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A shell dreaming wings,
twists and lifts past fern edges, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">an orange hawk,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>glazed on the underside, shrouded in splash
fire<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A plate, twisted into
abalone flesh, maybe<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Once soft at the moment of
intense heat<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Now hardened into shell,
with trying wings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The heat at 4,000 degrees
past the limit<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The vessels could not have
fathomed the boil, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The sheer melt ahead<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">They can rest secure in
this new form, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">For what could possibly
harm them now?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Surely not fire, nor wind,
nor movement of earth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">No consumption, no
swallowing, no biting here<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">They are untouchable,
safe, waiting for a distant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Wave to move them somewhere
else<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I reach out and cradle the
conch in loving awe<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Of what it has endured,
feel the heat of my hands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">In a light warming, no
danger of singeing or searing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The only terror left could
be a shattering fall<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A smattering of pieces
reduced once more<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">But even this thought does
not seem to faze the sea slug<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">It seems to say, “I have
always been a piece made <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">To fit into another, and
now your hand suits me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The others whisper, a wave
is coming, and we are<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Heavy enough to roll to
another place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">We have been there before,
been here before<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The sea slug transforms
once again into <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">An ancient fish before my
eyes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A dark, primitive blind
bottom feeder <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">This will happen to us, it
whispers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">To you, and see, what is
the worst<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">That could possibly ever
be?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-7796203699471894852016-10-20T12:54:00.001-07:002016-10-20T12:54:50.918-07:00
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Gail Stark<span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>June 1, 2016 </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">BUTTE FIRE MEMOIRS THE BEGINNING </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">On Wednesday, September 9, 2015, my husband’s eightieth birthday, we
were at home busily engaged in preparations for a three day birthday
celebration/family reunion. Children, grandchildren and their families were
flying in from three different states in anticipation of a Friday of
reconnecting, visiting, swimming, games and barbecuing, a Saturday evening
patio gala complete with dear life-long friends, caterer, photographer, music
and starry skies, and, to top it all off, a lovely brunch for all on Sunday under
the arbor of our favorite restaurant. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Funny, I no longer remember how we learned of a fire which had
started across the Mokelumne River in Amador County near the city of Jackson.
Since that site was many miles away it caught our attention, but raised no
mental alarms. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">However, that evening at dusk as a friend and his cousin, a
firefighter from the Bay Area, were helping us set up additional lighting we
could see smoke in the sky. The fireman said, “I don’t like the looks of that.
I’m going back, get my stuff and, then, I’m out of here!” </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">We thought he was over reacting! </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">By the next morning, Thursday, September 10, 2016, the situation had
become threatening. Our daughter-in-law and her eldest daughter were driving to
Mountain Ranch with a truck loaded with boxes of decorations and masses of
fresh flowers for the celebration. We faced a dilemma. I vividly recall talking
with Bill in the family room. We were trying to decide, do we cancel the entire
weekend after months of planning? Should we call Susan and tell her not to
come? </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">And that, as I look back, was the beginning of the downward spiral
which still, nine months later, surrounds and permeates our daily lives and our
dark of night thoughts. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">We called. She and Katie were on the road already. She said they
were coming anyway. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Ironically, I went to town to the local market for what I can simply
not imagine at this point, but I met Susan and Katie there. Why they had
stopped is another mystery. They had been watching the sky as they drove nearer
and nearer and were in disbelief by the time they arrived in Mountain Ranch. We
three looked at the eerie sky agreeing to head home immediately. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">We didn’t know what action to take. The sky was ever darkening as
the minutes passed. An unearthly light illuminated the towering pines. Should
we stay? Should we go? Go? Evacuate? Evacuate, an almost incomprehensible
thought. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Leave? Leave our twenty-two acres of lush, towering, protecting
pines and fir and cedar. Leave the two hundred year old oaks which housed the native
birds and fed the squirrel and deer their bountiful acorns every fall? Leave
the home we so lovingly built and enhanced for over forty years? Leave a place
which harbored the heart and soul of three (with the birthday celebration -
four) generations of our family? </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">However, when warm, blackened oak leaves three inches in diameter
fell from the sky, when the sun was obscured by smoke and the sky turned a
menacing almost black color we made the decision. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Fueled by a sense of the unknown, of fear, of urgency and of sadness
we each, grandfather, grandmother, daughter-in-law and granddaughter, began
loading the daily lives and family history, mostly precious, some not so
precious - just necessary- into our vehicles. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Susan dumped all the flowers and several containers of party
decorations on the garage floor refilling them with heirloom items from the
house, Katie, at twenty-one years, gathered with quiet purpose and grace my
jewelry and personal items not letting her own emotions interfere with her somber
mission. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">And, me? What did I do? I’m actually not sure. I think I emptied the
safe, I know I was in motion, making immediate decisions - what to take—what to
leave; however, as I write I find a blank until my SUV held, shivering in the
back, our huge white Anatolian goat guard dog from our ranch property five
miles away and our orange manx loudly protesting being crammed into an ill
fitting cat carrier. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I don’t know why not, but we were never told by any type of
authority personnel to evacuate; so, by our own determination we took what we
could carry of our lives in a car, a truck and an SUV. When we drove out the
driveway we couldn’t look back for that “one last image” because we needed all
our driving skill and composure as we entered a situation which was beyond
weird. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">We joined the literally non-stop chain of people, animals, cars,
motorcycles, horse trailers, and trucks of disparate ages and conditions, all
moving slowly, single file with headlights on down the only road leading away.
Canopied by the now black sky which seeped a diabolical light we, the escapees,
the mourners, put our sadness and grief on hold —buried somewhere deep only to
surface later as confusion, forgetfulness, quick temper, unexplainable fatigue,
high blood pressure, anxiety and insomnia. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">But, that late afternoon only thirty-six hours after the Butte fire
sparked miles and miles away our neighborhood fled before its incendiary
onslaught. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-10875141418306159352016-10-20T12:50:00.003-07:002016-10-20T12:52:57.451-07:00<style>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Gail Stark<span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span>June
2, 2016</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">BUTTE FIRE
MEMOIRS</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";"> THE MIDDLE</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Today is
like most days here on the ranch, guarding the forty goats who mostly eat grass
or rest all day. Not hard duty, so I, too, rest by the barn keeping my eye on
them and our surroundings, but I feel uneasy. I smell smoke. Something is not
right.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Then, I hear
my master’s truck. I run to the gate to greet him as usual and to get my
favorite snack. We share the daily wagging and patting, but, suddenly,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">I don’t know
what is happening. Bill is shoving me onto the bed of his pickup truck. I’m
confused because this has never happened before, and, I’m scared because this
truck makes strange noises I don’t understand.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Bill starts
the engine, the truck begins to move, in my fear and panic I leap over the side
of the pickup. Now, my one hundred five pounds is hanging outside of the truck
by my collar, paws off the ground with neck being painfully stretched. The
truck stops.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Bill jumps
out looking very worried. Fortunately, Brad, his son, is nearby and helps Bill
get me back down to the ground. I’m done with vehicles. Way too scary.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">But,
suddenly, together Bill and Brad are attempting to lift me into Brad’s Subaru.
They push me, talk to me, lift my butt and legs and, surprisingly, I find
myself a prisoner in the car. I don’t remember being in a car before. Something
is not right. In desperation I crawl to Brad and put my head in his lap while
he drives.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">The car
stops. I am happy and relieved to see Bill again. He helps me out of the car,
pats me, talks to me, then puts me in a big chain linked fence enclosure with a
little house inside. I realize I can’t get out; so I watch Gail (she’s like my
Mom) and some other family I know carrying boxes from the house to the cars in
front. What are they doing? Warm, black oak leaves are falling on me. Something
is not right.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">The next
thing I know Bill leads me out of the wire cage to Gail’s SUV. He wants to put
me in the back of it! Scared again, I resist, I really resist. I don’t bark or
bite. I just use all of my strength to stay out of that car; but, four humans
later I am back in a metal monster along with a yowling orange and white cat!
They talk of evacuation. I hear the words, “time to go”. Gail’s car engine
starts. I don’t know what is happening as we pull onto Whiskey Slide Road into
a line of many other cars, trucks and horses in trailers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">The sky is
black and a diabolical light illuminates the pines. Gail drives. After a while
she calls Mike, her neighbor and friend. “You must get out of there,” she
almost shouts at Mike. “You can’t stay. I see the flames from here from
Mountain Ranch Road!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">We stop at
last. Bill lets me out of the car. Everyone from the house in Mountain Ranch is
at their son Hy’s house in San Andreas. They think they are safe from the fire.
I must stay outside tied to a stair railing since I’ve never been inside a
house in my entire life; so, Bill sits with me. He takes me for walks and
brings me food and water. Sometimes Hy or Katie sits with me as well. Gail is
inside on the phone or computer trying to find out what is going on. Susan
organizes the needed food while waiting for her son Michael and her husband, to
arrive bringing his concern and moral support.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">After two
days I hear the word “evacuation” again. Something is not right. Again, I am
loaded into the back of the SUV, but this time Bill squeezes in there with me
to help me be less frightened. We spend three days at Michael and Susan’s in
Walnut Creek while the people have a small birthday party for Bill and visit
with family even though they are upset and preoccupied. Gail continues on her
phone and computer trying to find out if their house has burned down or not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Again, back
in the car; now, back to Hy’s in San Andreas. The Highway Patrol has blocked
all roads leading into the burn zone so I must stay tied to the stair railing
for so many days it is a blur.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Finally, at
last, and none too soon Bill takes me home to my ranch. I literally jump for
joy as I run in the grass and greet my goats which are grazing by the barn as
if nothing had happened. But, something did happen for the land across the road
is burned beyond imagination and the houses have disappeared.</span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-13487951186595745672016-10-20T12:50:00.000-07:002016-10-20T12:52:31.529-07:00<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Gail Stark<span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span>June
2, 2016</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">BUTTE FIRE
MEMOIRS</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";"> THE MIDDLE</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Today is
like most days here on the ranch, guarding the forty goats who mostly eat grass
or rest all day. Not hard duty, so I, too, rest by the barn keeping my eye on
them and our surroundings, but I feel uneasy. I smell smoke. Something is not
right.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Then, I hear
my master’s truck. I run to the gate to greet him as usual and to get my
favorite snack. We share the daily wagging and patting, but, suddenly,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">I don’t know
what is happening. Bill is shoving me onto the bed of his pickup truck. I’m
confused because this has never happened before, and, I’m scared because this
truck makes strange noises I don’t understand.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Bill starts
the engine, the truck begins to move, in my fear and panic I leap over the side
of the pickup. Now, my one hundred five pounds is hanging outside of the truck
by my collar, paws off the ground with neck being painfully stretched. The
truck stops.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Bill jumps
out looking very worried. Fortunately, Brad, his son, is nearby and helps Bill
get me back down to the ground. I’m done with vehicles. Way too scary.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">But,
suddenly, together Bill and Brad are attempting to lift me into Brad’s Subaru.
They push me, talk to me, lift my butt and legs and, surprisingly, I find
myself a prisoner in the car. I don’t remember being in a car before. Something
is not right. In desperation I crawl to Brad and put my head in his lap while
he drives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">The car
stops. I am happy and relieved to see Bill again. He helps me out of the car,
pats me, talks to me, then puts me in a big chain linked fence enclosure with a
little house inside. I realize I can’t get out; so I watch Gail (she’s like my
Mom) and some other family I know carrying boxes from the house to the cars in
front. What are they doing? Warm, black oak leaves are falling on me. Something
is not right.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">The next
thing I know Bill leads me out of the wire cage to Gail’s SUV. He wants to put
me in the back of it! Scared again, I resist, I really resist. I don’t bark or
bite. I just use all of my strength to stay out of that car; but, four humans
later I am back in a metal monster along with a yowling orange and white cat!
They talk of evacuation. I hear the words, “time to go”. Gail’s car engine
starts. I don’t know what is happening as we pull onto Whiskey Slide Road into
a line of many other cars, trucks and horses in trailers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">The sky is
black and a diabolical light illuminates the pines. Gail drives. After a while
she calls Mike, her neighbor and friend. “You must get out of there,” she
almost shouts at Mike. “You can’t stay. I see the flames from here from
Mountain Ranch Road!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">We stop at
last. Bill lets me out of the car. Everyone from the house in Mountain Ranch is
at their son Hy’s house in San Andreas. They think they are safe from the fire.
I must stay outside tied to a stair railing since I’ve never been inside a
house in my entire life; so, Bill sits with me. He takes me for walks and
brings me food and water. Sometimes Hy or Katie sits with me as well. Gail is
inside on the phone or computer trying to find out what is going on. Susan
organizes the needed food while waiting for her son Michael and her husband, to
arrive bringing his concern and moral support.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">After two
days I hear the word “evacuation” again. Something is not right. Again, I am
loaded into the back of the SUV, but this time Bill squeezes in there with me
to help me be less frightened. We spend three days at Michael and Susan’s in
Walnut Creek while the people have a small birthday party for Bill and visit
with family even though they are upset and preoccupied. Gail continues on her
phone and computer trying to find out if their house has burned down or not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Again, back
in the car; now, back to Hy’s in San Andreas. The Highway Patrol has blocked
all roads leading into the burn zone so I must stay tied to the stair railing
for so many days it is a blur.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Finally, at
last, and none too soon Bill takes me home to my ranch. I literally jump for
joy as I run in the grass and greet my goats which are grazing by the barn as
if nothing had happened. But, something did happen for the land across the road
is burned beyond imagination and the houses have disappeared.</span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-46896604394290387382016-10-20T12:48:00.001-07:002016-10-20T12:48:06.505-07:00
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica;">Gail Stark <span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>June
3, 2016</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica;">BUTTE FIRE
MEMOIRS: THE RETURN</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica;">Still living
at our son’s small house with Hy as well as his assistants (Hy’s disabled) and
Trooper, the guard dog tied to the outside stair railing, and Tippy, the
outdoor cat unhappily and noisily confined to the inside. We felt adrift in an
exotic and strange world of ambiguity and lack of bearing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica;">We were
jolted back to reality with a phone call from our friend Mike, who told us that
the blockade on West Murray Creek Road had been lifted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica;">Now, West
Murray Creek Road is a long and arduous and barely maintained road from San
Andreas to its ending at Whiskey Slide Road, the corner of our property. It
winds up the side of a mountain to what in the past was a fire lookout station
and then heads down hill toward Mountain Ranch. With long driveways branching
off of West Murray Creek Road, numerous secluded home sites enjoyed the privacy
and spectacular views the trees and elevation provided all year, each and every
year.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica;">So, we
quickly started off eager to go to Mountain Ranch to see what had happened to
our home, our property, our neighborhood. Having heard sobering descriptions we
felt we were mentally prepared for the drive. Nothing, nothing could have
prepared us for the magnitude of devastation we witnessed as we drove from San
Andreas to the Lookout and back down to our corner. Only the black skeletal
remains of the pine, oak, maple, fir and madrone remained - not a leaf - not a
needle - not even a blade of grass remained. Bare darkened earth highlighted
now exposed, once private roads which meandered across the dead land to
secluded, now vanished homes. From canyon and gully to ridge tops the disaster
rose and fell and rose again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica;">As we
approached our corner we were shaken from the current drive as well as hopeful
and apprehensive simultaneously. Both states proved accurate, for as we drove
in our driveway we found our house standing there exactly as we had left it.
Two pines and two liquid ambers near the front of the house stood as well,
along with an old grandfather oak in the back. Our enormous relief quickly
turned to horror as we looked up the driveway toward our well house. It was
gone. Simply nothing remained except the metal corrugated roofing material
which was lying on the ground and covered the footprint of the structure. There
were no charred pieces of wall wood or beams. The building had literally
vaporized, the fire had been so hot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica;">But, the
well house could be replaced. Not true for the remainder of our twenty-two
acres as every living thing was either badly burned or burned beyond any semblance
of earlier life. We were horrified, sickened, disbelieving, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica;">uncomprehending,
in total shock. Our property, the home of the deer and fox and squirrels and
turkeys and bluejays, and woodpeckers had been annihilated. The homes of the
bees and ants and worms and more life forms than I ever knew lived there were
nothing but tall black sticks and blackened earth. Again, not one single pine
needle could be seen or blade of grass....all vaporized.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">In the weeks and months and even now, nine
months later, another difficulty for those of us whose houses were spared and
whose property burned beyond recognition became apparent. We were finding it
impossible to explain our profound grief, our sense of loss. “But, you have
your house,” we would be told. The implication being that we were selfish,
uncaring and unsympathetic to those hundreds whose houses had been burned down.
“No, we say. Please, please, try to understand. We do have our houses, but we
have lost our homes. Our homes were the house and the land and the trees and
the wildlife which shared that particular piece of earth with us. We have lost
our daily images. We have lost what has been our refuge-our place of safety and
support. Our home, land and house, is forever compromised never to share its
many life giving and life sustaining properties, never to whisper in the breeze
or toss violently in a winter storm. Never to shelter a litter of fox kits or
feel the small impact of a young squirrel as it lands on a branch, never to be
the hideout for young children’s first club or be the place to show them the
intricacies and layers of the life it fostered. We who lost our home, but
retained our house chose the foothills precisely because of the variety and
wonder of its intrinsic beauty. We wanted, yea, needed to have our spirits be
near and interact with all the life present in the natural world. Yes, we have
our houses, but we ache and hold a deep longing </span>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-83187816764747140802016-10-20T12:40:00.001-07:002016-10-20T12:45:22.807-07:00<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Gail Stark<span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span>June
3, 2016</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">BUTTE FIRE
MEMOIRS THE RECOVERY</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">The word
recovery seems to conjure up the idea of a single process. One begins recovery
from whatever the problem is, the requisite work is begun and completed, and,
consequently, the recovery is done, finished, over. Neat, tidy, simple,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Only that is
not what I have experienced. How I wish it were that simple. The truth of the
matter is that recovery is an on-going multi-level process which doesn’t travel
a straight line, but proceeds in fits and starts following a designated path
only to be radically redirected at any moment. And, it doesn’t happen
overnight. I suppose recovery and the time it takes to happen depends on the
magnitude of the thing from which one is recovering or, more accurately, one’s
perception of that thing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">In the case
of the Butte fire the recovery seems to be very slow or nonexistent. There is
the recovery of the land, which actually will never happen. It will never be
the same even if it all were reforested, which won’t happen. Grasses are coming
back. Hopefully, some brush will appear in the months to come, but the vibrant,
living, breathing organisms of trees, plants, animals, insects, birds and all
ground beings is gone forever. Something living will take its place since
nature in her drive for life will create what she can, but the work of decades
cannot be replicated. So, I guess, recovery in the case of the habited land
means cutting down the dead and dying, perhaps replanting, and waiting for
nature to take her course. In the case of the wild lands, only nature will
restore the downed forests, but she can only work with what little is left. So,
actually, true recovery is only a dream.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Recovery for
those individuals and families who have lost their homes, and there are
hundreds, varies with each circumstance. My neighborhood is a microcosm of what
is happening. Four immediate neighbors are burned out: one family purchased
another home in a different area of Mountain Ranch, two said they would rebuild
but have done nothing, and one parcel is logged and vacant. One has moved away,
with another trying to sell and go. A burned acreage has been purchased and the
new owners have erected a large green painted fence for their privacy. Three
original neighbors remain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Personally,
I grieve mightily for the loss of my (our) neighborhood because we have been a
tight bunch, many of us together for twenty, even over thirty years. We have
helped each other, shared meals with each other, cared for our lands together,
and loved each other. What a healthy and blessed way of life! It is gone. There
is no recovery for our neighborhood. The fire took it all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">A new and
different neighborhood will form in place of the old one. New and different
people will move in. What type of relationships they form or not is up to them.
What they do with the land is up to them. Will they cherish and respect it?
Whatever transpires lies in the choices they make. This will be the new normal
for my neighborhood. This is what people are calling recovery.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">There
remains the personal recovery. This is recovery on an individual level. I will
try to share my journey.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">The year was
1973. The place was Mountain Ranch, Calaveras County, California, USA. The
voting register held only 200 names for a very large area, so it is evident
that this area was extremely rural, which means we who lived there procured our
daily supplies from the one grocery store, one general store complete with wood
stove and pool table, one post office and one gas station.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">It was an
area of rolling hills, gorgeous Monterey and Sugar and Digger pines mixed with
a variety of oaks, maples, madrone, firs, and cedars. Wild life abounded. We
had the ubiquitous deer, mountain lion, coyote, raccoon, squirrel, blue jay,
quail, opossum, porcupine, butterfly, moths, ants galore, honey bees and yellow
jackets just for starters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Our five
boys lived a free and wonderful life exploring all the land had to offer and
developing a sense of closeness to the earth which they carry in their hearts
today. There was no crime, and no police presence. I used to say if we needed
to correct something we would have to form a vigilante committee. It was wild
and free especially for a city girl. And, I loved it. I loved living with all
the other living creatures. I loved being a part of the natural world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">My husband
and I found a piece of land we loved on Whiskey Slide Road and decided to build
our much-needed larger house on that site. There was a small knoll by the road
which Bill thought would be a good building site. The traffic count moving by
the knoll was about six cars per day. Yes, six. However, for some unknown
reason I felt we needed to build behind the knoll, which we did. Good thing
since thirty-seven homes were built just two miles beyond us, not to mention
all the other growth in the area.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">In January
1974 we moved the three miles closer to town, lopping thirty or forty minutes
off the kids’ school bus ride to San Andreas. The house stood on twenty-two
acres, which held all the earlier described wild life and more. The view from
my kitchen window was of ongoing life, the cycles of the seasons, the delight
of new fawn each year and the spring time return of the robins. An endless
kaleidoscope of fascinating and soul satisfying images.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">For years
and years I have walked Whiskey Slide Road to the church on the corner of East
Murray Creek, actually since before the church was there! My grandchildren
would complain of the long walk, it was three and one half miles, but now they
are grown and go willingly! I often took a bag to pick up trash thrown out of
cars. I couldn’t stand to see the papers and bottles and cigarette butts along
the road as the manmade items stood out from their natural background. In the
beginning I collected enormous bags of trash; however, as the years passed many
drivers and passengers alike got the message and the garbage collection
diminished. Not gone, diminished.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">When the
fire came, it killed most all of what I speak. All except our house and a few
trees around it. The house was not burned because my husband has faithfully
disced a large area around it for fire control.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Whiskey
Slide Road has been burned down, cut down, and chipped to pieces. It has gone
from a drive of exquisite natural beauty to an ugly open scar on the black
earth, a blackened and burned, mutilated, rotting corpse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">I have not
yet been able to adequately explain what the loss of that land has meant to me.
I cry now just thinking about it. How much I loved that land and all it held.
It has been such a tremendous wrenching of my self, my soul from a vibrant,
living thing with which I interacted on a daily basis. That forest was such a
huge part of my life. It was always there in the background. Always supporting
me and welcoming me home after a time apart. It was the basis of my existence
in a way that I did not understand until it was gone. Today my sadness lives
just under the surface of my life springing forth at the oddest moments. Tears
suddenly flow. I try to explain, but can’t. It seems I am alone in this deep
pain. Sometimes I feel a little more forward-looking, like there will be a new
life. Actually, I know there will be a new life, but I also know that I must
bear this grief for however long it takes for me to grieve this enormous loss.
The loss is deep because I have been blessed to live in a setting unavailable
and incomprehensible to most people. I must remember that blessing. And, be</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">grateful. I
must remember that blessing. And, be grateful. I must remember that blessing.
And, be grateful........And, the tears continue to flow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";">Recovery is
a process, not an event. Healthy recovery is a process which leads to a new
normal holding blessed memories and heartfelt gratitude close. I am heading
toward m</span>y new normal.</div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-57316603052239539632016-10-18T11:35:00.000-07:002016-10-18T11:35:13.497-07:00<style>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Mark Russell (Facebook post on Sept. 12, 2015)</span></b><span style="color: #3a5898; font-family: "helvetica";"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #131822; font-family: "helvetica";">Ok, so on
Thursday morning at 7a.m. I go to breakfast with </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Rick Schaad<span style="color: #131822;"> down at Perkos, and they're
closed for ADA remodeling, so we head out to Thomi's in south Jackson, but the
power is out there, so we head to Mel's which is full of evacuees, but open.
After breakfast I head home, and see that the plume of smoke from the canyon is
looking mighty close to my house. I decide that it might be prudent to gather
up some stuff and put it in the trailer just in case, but the truck has the
topper on it and the fifth wheel hitch isn't installed. No worry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I go to start the truck and the battery is
completely dead, so I have to maneuver the Jetta close enough where I can jump
start the truck. I move the truck to the garage, leave it running while I lift
the topper off, pull it out of the garage to install the hitch and for some
reason turn the truck off --- and it won't start again. At the same time I'm
noticing that very thick black and orange smoke is arching right over the top
of the house, and I can see the smoke boiling through the trees. I check my
phone for evacuation updates, and my phone dies. (To be honest, I had been
putting off getting a new phone after the on/off switch quit working a few
months ago.) The only way I can restart the phone is to plug it in, but the
power is off, so I have to use the car charger, but on the Jetta the ACC port
doesn't work unless the engine is running, so I have to start the Jetta and
leave it running to reboot the phone, which takes about 5 minutes. Still calm,
I start installing the 5th wheel hitch on the truck, which is an easy 10 minute
two-person job, but a difficult hour long one-person job involving multiple
socket wrenches and a roll of duct tape. All the while I'm watching the smoke
get thicker, checking the Cal Fire website for evacuation updates, and having
to start the Jetta and reboot the phone every time. I finally get the hitch
installed, check the evac update and see that I'm being ordered out immediately
on a mandatory evacuation. Now I'm getting a little bit stressed. I go back
into the house and am able to stuff two of the cats, Trooper and Little Shit,
into cat carriers with only a few wounds, but the third cat, Floozie, is
nowhere to be found. I spill some food into her dish and start hauling the
heirlooms and photos out to the truck. Now there is a constant din of aircraft
overhead, helicopters and bombers, and a huge DC10 VLAT comes skimming over at
what seems like treetop level. It's starting to feel like a war zone, and I'm
getting frantic when I hear fire trucks coming down Timber Ridge Road to force
evacuations. I feel like I probably need to move on along, so I move the Jetta
over to the truck and jump start it, and move the truck down to the shed to
hitch up the trailer, which requires backing down a short but narrow and steep
dirt ramp to the shed, which would make it harder to jump the truck again if I
had to. I can hear the firemen at the neighbors banging on the door.
Fortunately I'm able to get the trailer hitched in record time and pulled out
of the shed without killing the engine. I hear the fire trucks coming back up
the road now, and remember the two cats in carriers still sitting in the kitchen,
so I run back up to the house, grab my cats, the phone and charger out of the
Jetta (which is still running) and dash back down to the truck. The growling
cats go into the trailer, and I jump into the truck, put it in gear and pull
out onto the one lane road in front of two fire trucks coming up the hill. It's
a fairly steep gravel road up to Tabeaud Road from my driveway, and I keep it
in 4 low to keep from killing it, and I make it to the road in front of the
fire engines. I don't know what would have happened if I had stalled; the fire
fighters surely would have helped me, but I have visions of being shoved off
the road into the brush as they go by. On the road now there is a steady stream
of cars, all loaded to the gunwales with crap and looking like the Joads,
heading out toward 88. A dozen police cars (Oakland? Napa? Lodi?) and 5 fire
trucks, sirens screaming and lights flashing, blow by me in the other
direction. There's a traffic jam at 88: the traffic heading east up the hill is
bumper to bumper, and the police are turning back frantic drivers who are
unsuccessfully trying to get onto Tabeaud Road to get to their homes in Pine
Acres to save what they can. Grace has been racing up from Stockton but arrives
too late, I call her and we meet at Rick and </span>Denise Schaad's<span style="color: #131822;"> house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have
no power or water but at least are not in the evacuation zone. We all decide to
tow the trailers down to Jackson and set up a refugee camp behind Safeway,
where we can hook into power and have restroom access at Denise's Bodies N
Balance studio. We spend the rest of the day at loose ends, watching the
boiling smoke and aerial attacks in the distance, and a constant string of
screaming fire trucks, bulldozers on flatbeds, and PG&E equipment moving on
the highway below. When evening comes, Grace drives back to Stockton, and I bed
down with the cats in our little refugee camp with the southern sky glowing
bright orange from the flames, hoping that the house is OK but having no way of
knowing for sure.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #131822; font-family: "helvetica";">That was
Thursday. Friday is a new phone and truck battery, a shower at the Foothill
Conservancy office in Jackson and finally a move from the Safeway camp to the
most gracious Giles and Shirley Turner’s home in Sutter Creek. We have had at
least a dozen offers of refuge from our fabulous friends in Amador County. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #131822; font-family: "helvetica";">Today,
Saturday, is a waiting game, and who knows how it will turn out. But with the
incredible efforts being made by Cal Fire, plus all of the local, California
and national mutual support emergency agencies, and, of course, all of the
organizations and individuals locally who are opening their businesses, homes
and hearts to their neighbors, I know that everything that can be done is being
done, regardless of the outcome. It is what it is, and I'm OK with that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #131822; font-family: "helvetica";">But I
still can't remember for the life of me if I turned the Jetta off.</span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-89254256825902411252016-09-28T09:34:00.000-07:002016-09-28T09:34:51.022-07:00
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<span style="color: #2f475a; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Caitlin M. Wilbur</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<u style="text-underline: #2F475A;"><span style="color: #2f475a; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I
Didn’t Know</span></u><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f475a; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I started writing again the
day before my house burned to the ground. That was one week ago. I mentioned
something about fire being cleansing before it ever reached anyone I love. I
didn't know. I didn't think it would come for us, but it did. And when it did,
it came fast and strong. I don't have words for the images I carry with me into
the wee hours of the morning, only setting them down to close my eyes when I
can no longer keep them open. I don't have words for the ache in my chest or
the way our bodies swell with pride watching our neighbors stoop to help one
another. I have seen men and women fight to save another's home while their own
still smolders. I have seen strangers embrace and old friends reach through the
years to offer words of comfort and the use of their own hands.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f475a; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Tonight I
sorted through what few pieces of clothing we have left. The sweet
smell of burnt pine lingered on a favorite sweater. I sat on the end of the bed
in this small room cradling my head in my hands, remembering the hurried hours
before it all went up in flames. I paced the floors, forsaking housework in
order to watch out the windows. The ash and blackened oak leaves fell all
around and I talked myself out of being scared. Don’t be silly. It couldn't
move that fast. But those canyons. Those trees. The dry, dry grass. They’ll
tell you if you need to go. Funny how I can now recall that every inch of my
body was on edge. My brow furrowed. My gut questioning my reason. So instead of
packing I picked tomatoes. As the sky turned orange and the ash fell more
furiously, I spoke with my neighbor. Our eyes saying what our mouths could not.
Maybe we should get ready to go. The hotline says we should just be prepared.
You get a real person. He didn't sound concerned. I’ll get a shower. Wait for
my husband. I should grab the box on the top shelf of the closet. Where’s my
engagement ring anyway? Jack called. He sounded excited...not yet worried for
our land. We’re just being cautious, baby. Do grab the box on the top shelf of
the closet. By the time he got home the wind swirled in small circles around the
yard. Kicking up what I now know to be the remnants of friends' homes. The
lights flickered quickly as I moved from room to room and a foreign heat
radiated through the trees behind our houses. When the distant explosions first
started you could almost convince yourself that your ears were playing tricks
on you. But they only came closer and more frequent in number. I’ll never
forget following our yellow jeep out the gate, Jack motioning to drive on,
signaling that I shouldn't bother to close it. The ash danced in our headlights
like falling snow. As our cars melted into the river of them hurrying down the
mountain, I looked back over my right shoulder as the flames silhouetted the
ridge before our own. Alone in my car, what little we'd thought to take stacked
precariously in the back, I cried for the first time.</span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-46632378519010581582016-09-28T09:32:00.000-07:002016-09-28T09:32:20.696-07:00
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<span style="color: #2f475a; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Caitlin M. Wilbur</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"></span></div>
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<u style="text-underline: #2F475A;"><span style="color: #2f475a; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Home</span></u><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f475a; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I know in my bones how
blessed we are, but I wake from these dreams of our bodies tangled in the
blankets of our first bed. The soft morning light shyly making its way into our
room as Lucy’s whiskers tickle my face. In these dreams I can smell freshly ground
coffee beans and the cedar tree outside our bathroom window. I can hear the
rhythmic chopping of zucchini from our summer garden, the sizzling of bacon in
a well-loved cast iron skillet. I miss wiping down the counter tops and mopping
our dusty floors. I miss singing as I worked, windows flung open to a cool
mountain breeze. Have you ever noticed the sound the wind makes through an
ocean of pines? I’d often sit barefoot on the edge of the porch with my eyes
closed to listen. In these dreams I can feel the dirt beneath my finger nails,
a clothes pin held awkwardly between my lips as my hands fight to keep a wet
sheet from the ground. I can see the dogs chasing each other through the
lupines in the clearing and around my favorite, ancient oak. The cat lounging
lazily in a windowsill. In these dreams I can hear my husband sink an ax into a
large wood round. Over. And over again. I can feel the perfect lengths in my
gloved hands as we stack them away for winter's warmth. And oh, how I can see
the stars. You’ve never seen stars so bright. Unmolested by city lights, some
nights I swear we could touch them.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2f475a; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">At least the stars remain.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-54603581676384762272016-09-14T09:58:00.002-07:002016-09-14T09:58:17.809-07:00<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Butte
Fire September 2015<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Charleen Tyson</span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We are just six women, having fun
on holiday in Ashland, until we find out there is a huge wild fire in Calaveras
County approaching the homes of five of us, a six-hour drive from where we are
standing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We headed home only to be evacuated from our homes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were lucky, the wind changed just before
getting to West Point; so many were not so lucky. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I personally know only one family who was burned out; they
are Lynn Keever and Charlie Campbell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Lynn and Charlie are jewelers, Crystal Geometrics is their business and
along with Lynn’s son, James Keever, made many of their pieces using dichroic
glass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if you already know the
beautiful creation that is dichroic glass, maybe you’ll like what Wikipedia
tells us about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Multiple ultra-thin
layers of different metals (such as gold or silver); oxides of such metals as
titanium, chromium, aluminium, zirconium, or magnesium; or silica are vaporised
by an electron beam in a vacuum chamber.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With all that going on, it better be something good, and it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh yeah.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Thoughts of all that beautiful glass lost to use because it
was ruined by the wild fire for use in the medium of jewelry, rankled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely there must be some other way to use
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked Lynn if she had thought of
using it in some other way, maybe a “beauty out of devastation” sort of thing,
but she said she just wasn’t going to go back there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I wanted to, she said, I could go collect
whatever might be usable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">My husband and I saw what it was that Lynn did not want to
see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The house was mostly ash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ceiling and roof had collapsed onto the
bottom floor covering everything in a thick layer of wet ash (it had just
rained) and melted asphalt shingles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
started poking around in what had been the work room, identified by the kilns,
still standing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Metal containers of colored glass rods stood like wilted
bouquets on a window ledge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An optical
glass “diamond” 4 inches tall had shattered inside but retained its overall
shape. Metal jewelers tools, saws, glass cutters, pieces of metal that were
unidentifiable were crusted black, some with the beautiful glass melted
on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the glass elements to be
used in jewelry pieces that Lynn and Charlie had already created were bent like
Dali clocks, or intruded upon by the odd screw or nail.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Thin sheets of the glass had been arranged in stacks and
will stay stacked forever; they formed amorphous layered shapes that gleamed in
the sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What can I do with this
stuff?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worry about that later, it’s too
beautiful just as it is, not to be given a second chance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We scrubbed, soaked, picked at, sanded, and admired in the
sun the booty we had collected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ash had
melted into some of the glass, asphalt coated or splattered or welded pieces
together; some of all that came off, not all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Now!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What to do with
all this grand stuff!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yikes!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps outline the wood grain of a Manzanita
stump with narrow strips of the glass, maybe a few of those lovely, almost flat
shards on the top…or instead a spray of those wiggly colored glass rods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How about some mobiles to hang in the sun to
be reminded of the glory that is dichroic glass… and to remember what this has
all been about for me, bringing something beautiful out of something so bad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-51691161719988493022016-09-14T09:58:00.000-07:002016-09-14T09:58:04.022-07:00Little White Cup<br />
<i>M.J. Mallery</i><br />
<br />
<i> </i>Oh, my goodness!<br />
Before the fire I held hot chocolate, marshmallows swirled<br />
about my rim and gave the kids foamy mustaches.<br />
Sometimes my chicken soup put smiles on their measly<br />
marked faces.<br />
<br />
What am I to do now?<br />
Take up knitting? Maybe I'll make a shawl for Aunt Ida.<br />
Train for the Olympics? I'm too fragile for pole vaulting.<br />
Perhaps I'll dabble in politics and run for Congress.<br />
Maybe I'll become President!<br />
<br />
Oh no! A parent is tossing me into the trash.<br />
Help, I'm stuck. I can't move.<br />
Whew! Thanks Monika for rescuing me from oblivion. <br />
<br />Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-5574297648465990922016-09-10T18:45:00.002-07:002016-09-10T18:45:19.623-07:00
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Woodlings <span style="mso-tab-count: 8;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Suzanne Murphy</i><span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
It
was a possibility for human tribes</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
to
hear, once upon a time, ancient forests</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
when
winter storms gusted </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
and
balming breezes whispered</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
along
the limbs of redwoods and cedars</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
Hikers
trailed along sharp-edged schist </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
and
moss-shouldered stones, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
feet
stirred up pine scents on forest walks,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
faces
lifted to the sun dapple above</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
and
souls to a tree’s blessings</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
When
woodland sentinels are felled</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
by
firestorm or bulldozer scars,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
those
thieves who steal green majesty,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
grey
ash and sawdust pepper the air</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
drive
away communities and creatures<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
The
roar of dry silence — a desert</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
faeries
and owls alike fled refuges</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
but
not forever. Come again watery courses</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
and
lay down nurseries of seedlings</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
that
bide their own growing time</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
Secreted
abundance below sleeping earth</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
no
one sees the slow way roots force </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
themselves
into the labor of reclamation,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
save
for the sun that rises each day and</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
celebrates
a return of air so sweet to breathe</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
Rising
in a generation clothed in new raiment</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
trees,
river waters, golden grasses, forest denizens</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
make
of the world a place of wonderment. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
With
renewed reverence, humans step softly </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
and
hear the voices of the forest.<span style="mso-tab-count: 8;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-87374120811843551412016-09-10T18:43:00.001-07:002016-10-20T13:10:00.959-07:00<style>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Sydney Avey</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">THE WARRIOR, A TRIBUTE </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">He jumps
the canyon rim,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fist pumps
the air, bellows belligerent smoke<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and descends
like a marauding tribe
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to bully
the dry forest<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rooted and mute in his path. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">We
scamper from disturbed nests,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>form
columns, arm ourselves <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with courage and technology.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He stomps
through, keeps going. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">His
savage red face paints
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>across miles of sky.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heart hot
and black
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pumped with stolen oxygen,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>driven by
a century-old hunger,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>he devours acres of brush,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>picks his
teeth with the tops of trees, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and pulls his
dragon tail deftly <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>out of harm’s way. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">We bring
in reinforcements,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>buzz his head, use our diplomacy, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>invite him to
go elsewhere.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
will go wherever he pleases. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">His
specter rises in clouds <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>open-mawed,
empty-eyed,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>an ancient soul named
Legion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He will go,
but not before he has <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>scalped our
forest,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>seared
our lungs,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and settled the score. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4788242858991784860.post-11946523932202279492016-09-10T18:32:00.004-07:002016-09-10T18:32:23.570-07:00
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<br />
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<b>Chamomile tea; and she</b></div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<i>By Joy Willow</i></div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>steam rises
still</div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from swan-neck
spout,</div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>teapot dream of
unbroken bowls -</div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>breakfast
arrested mid-sip;</div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>chamomile quiets
the nerves</div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of shaking
hands, “and she” stirs</div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sugar with the
long spoon,</div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>spreads butter
with the proper knife,</div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the bread is
salted, broken,</div>
<div class="BasicParagraph">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>dissolved on the
tongue</div>
Manzanita Writers Presshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03547482298605946577noreply@blogger.com0