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A powdery layer of ash lies on the patio, fallen like a silent snow in the night. When you breathe, California is in you nose, and a fine grittiness is on your teeth.
Yesterday morning, a great wall of smoke rose over the mountains to the sundown side, casting a Gondor-like pall across our valley and then blotting out the sun completely. It was an eerie, dark, and caramel colored day.
This morning the wind has changed, and the dense cover has become ribbons of gray, with blood red edges, reminding me of the broken hearts of the thousands of homeless, some four hundred miles to the west, in the hills, canyons, and neighborhoods where I grew up.
With heavy heart, in the Colorado River Valley.
In Reply to: Mourning Morning posted by Jim H. on October 30, 2003 at 08:23:20:
Are you anywhere close to Colorado Springs, I know I just herd they are having fires out there. I have family who live out in Colorado Springs, but since I don't go to the reunions they just count me out? I am not able to go to renuions. But still would like to know how my two brothers are doing. I cant imagine how my family got so far apart? but my brothers have always been like this. Just not caring for about me at all. Just had a renion last fall but, it was the first and I wasn't able to go. I learn later they were there I was shocked that they even came.
In Reply to: Mourning Morning posted by Jim H. on October 30, 2003 at 08:23:20:
I think we need to learn from this and do enough lumbering to clear out old trees that will die soon as well as all the deadfall- environmentalists had good intentions, but now we have to pay attention to the results.
In Reply to: Mourning Morning posted by Jim H. on October 30, 2003 at 08:23:20:
I hesitate to turn on the TV, because they will probably tell me they couldn't save Julian, a wonderful little mountain town where apples are their "thing". They have (had?) a funky bar there called the Wrong Branch, you know, with the sawdust on the floor and games I can't remember the name of. (I take delight in breaking rules of grammar, especially the preposition at the end of the sentence one, now that I am of the age that rules no longer apply to me) There was the game where you slide the metal puck down a miniature bowling alley on legs, and the one where the little wooden hockey guys on rods with handles sticking out the sides of a table, and you try to get them to kick a ball down your opponents hole. (It sounds worse than it is when I put it that way.) Mainly there was a touristy atmosphere in there, and cheap beer. Usually you'd hesitate to enter a bar like that for reasons to numerous to go into, but this one was safe.
They had apple EVERYTHING there in Julian, every way to cook them, plus every way to mold them in ceramic, and some of the shops and restaurants were authentic wooden (tinder box) buildings still standing from before the turn of the century.
They had a few orchards for show too. Most of the apples were shipped in, but nobody cared about that. They had that unmatched sound wind makes through pines, and a pristine air, and only forty-five minutes from downtown San Diego! We were young then. That is the source of my heavy heart.
Heavier still was when I realized some years ago we would have to leave the state. There actually is no California anymore. Not the one I knew. It was heaven in my youth. True Mediterranean climate, lots of empty space, countless groves of citrus, clear skies, and endless room for a young boy to roam barefoot.
The forests and chaparral are all politicized now, with developers and environmentalists taking sides on whatever wing of whatever party suits their agenda. All have “reason” on their side, and nobody seems to be able to see it through the eyes of a youngster.
In Reply to: Re: Mourning Morning posted by Jim H. on October 31, 2003 at 07:21:48:
Hi Jim,
What's happening in Southern California is so devasting, I can barely watch the pictures on the news. I did hear that Julian was saved, but I could be wrong. Lake Arrow Head is no more, it's unbelievable.
Back in another life, I was living with a family in the upper hills of Bel Air, while I was a graduate student at UCLA. One night I had an incredibly strong feeling that something horrible was about to happen. I didn't know what it was, but I grabbed a pencil and paper and just started writing. I knew the truth would reveal itself.
Out of nowhere I started writing about a fire that blazed a razor straight trail down a hill. The image was intense and frightening. I finished writing, feeling somewhat relieved, but still very leary.
I woke up the next morning to the sound of helicopters, and was told that overnight, a fire had broken out, in the hills a few miles from our house.
I don't know what was more frightening, the fire itself or the fact that I had such a strong and accurate premonition.
Anyway, I know what you mean about California not being the place it was, but there are still pockets of beauty, that they can't take away. The hills, the ride through the woods, the coast, Lake Tahoe.
Keep your chin up if you can Jim, I know how awful it is to watch your state burn to a crisp, but the weather has changed and I think it will help a lot.
In Reply to: Re: Mourning Morning posted by Jim H. on October 31, 2003 at 07:21:48:
Dear Jim H., come on over to New England. You can still candlestick bowl in New Hampshire. We have all those luscious apples in NY and you can pick them yourself. Was the other game, fooz ball?? or something??
I know, I know, it wouldn't be the same.
Who was it that said, "Life is all about loss"? So true right now. I feel for you.
In Reply to: Re: Mourning Morning posted by Jim H. on October 31, 2003 at 07:21:48:
Thanks, Jim, for the pictures.
Namaste`
Walt
In Reply to: Re: Mourning Morning posted by Sally on October 31, 2003 at 17:51:47:
Sally,
Yes it was Foosball! (see Foosball.com) Thanks for jogging my memory.
I like New England. I remember driving from Manhattan to Plainfield one November day, years ago, the last hour or two in a light snow. I was very tired by then, and driving into the snow had a hypnotizing effect on me. I had a hard time staying on the road. California boys aren't used to such things. I hope to get back there some day.
I don't know what life is all about, Sally, but change (loss?) is sure a big part of it, and a whole lot of it out of our control. All the better to develop humility and a good sense of humor in us, because as another someone once said, "The Best Laid Plans O' Mice and Men Gang Aft Aglay."
Jim
In Reply to: Re: Mourning Morning posted by I know on October 31, 2003 at 14:00:37:
Thanks for the kind words.
I hope you are right about Julian. I didn't watch yesterday and also haven't yet heard the fate of friends and acquaintances in the hard hit areas.
Yes, there is much beauty left in California, but even the places you mention are under siege of one or another of the blights of civilization. The beaches in So. Cal. are less than half the size they used to be, and the pollution from runoff leaves brown foam in the surf. Beautiful blue Lake Tahoe, I hear, is turning green, and the crowds there take so much from how it used to be. But what’s the point in whiny negativity!
It's an old story. When I was young I was pro environment because it sounded like the right thing to do. Now I've been around long enough that I have seen the effects of what is going on, and I understand that change occurs only after catastrophe….while we watch shaking our heads.
In Reply to: Re: Mourning Morning posted by Jim H. on November 01, 2003 at 07:55:16:
Thank you for that, Jim. I've plowed through many a snowflake, just makes me dizzy, but you have that poetic vision, don't you? :)
So true about humility. Acknowledging our vulnerabilities is an honest start.
In Reply to: Re: Mourning Morning posted by Jim H. on November 01, 2003 at 08:32:44:
You're welcome.
Well then maybe these fires are just the catastrophy that will stimulate a really affective change in California. I sincerely hope so. Economically the state will have to do something more to encourage tourism at this point, as people are pretty frightened to travel here right now, and I don't blame them. I completely understand your discouragement concerning the environment, and I can see how it would thwart otherwise willing people to work towards that end.
All I can say is that life is short and fleeting and we have to grab onto whatever little bit of beauty and happiness we can get, even if it means a smaller, browner beach, and a greener Tahoe, or completely new horizons, as in your case.
However, there is point of no return. There was a really delightful park near my home. It consisted of a blanket of grass and small, undulating hills [mounds really], as in a golf course. It had trees and flowers and an amphitheatre and a boardwalk and a little beach. It butt up against a man-made lake, that connected to a slew of waterways that fed into the bay.
I used to take regular walks there, picnic there, read and do work there etc. One day it was all fenced off with a sign that said it would be under construction for improvement for three long years. I waited and waited and then the time came. The fences were removed and this is what we saw.
The hills were leveled, many trees removed, most flowers removed, the amphitheatre's view of the lake was blocked by a huge shield, the little beach's view was blocked by two wind shields, most of the grass was removed, and in it's place was plain old unadulterated dirt.
I'd been going to that park for 19 years. I haven't been back since the unvailing, it was my point of no return.
In Reply to: Re: Mourning Morning posted by I know on November 01, 2003 at 14:17:32:
Thanks for the story. Who can understand civil servants and their concerns when they make improvements such as these?!
Yes I also heard historic Julian was saved. Ironically many of the voluntary firefighters, residents of the Julian area, lost their homes and property while defending the downtown.
When I am there next, I plan to offer a little prayer of thanks at the Wrong Branch, and for communion, a piece of apple pie ala mode.
In Reply to: Small fire victory posted by Jim H. on November 03, 2003 at 08:19:50:
I know what you mean about civil servants and municipal decisions. They might as well have let loose a load teenagers, who could have done the same job in one evening, rather than three long years and many taxpayers' dollars later.
Anyway, that is totally ironic and AMAZING that Julian firefighters managed to save downtown, and in the process lost their own homes. That says a lot about what the town must have meant to them, such an incredible sacrifice.
And that's very touching that you'll say a prayer of thanks, I'm sure the residents will really appreciate it. You have a beautiful soul. And as for the "communion pie", it sure beats a "host", doesn't it?
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