FireFireFire

I can't help it. I keep thinking about divalea's fire and my mind keeps going back. One, two, three house fires. But the first one was by far the worst - and as I keep thinking about it, I also mentally step back and go 'whoa' a few times.

May 23, 1974. I was thirteen. fourminutes, for your benefit? I'm going to refer to some places. You'll get the scale.

Back then, I was in 7th grade, and attending Hemet Junior High School - over behind the hospital? That's where it was then. Back then, there was bus service only out to Stanford and Mayberry - the house was between Cornell and Dartmouth on Whittier. Yup, most days? Had to walk it. ALL THAT WAY. It's about 10 miles. I lied a lot and jumped on the bus - that got me home sooner, but I still had to walk about half to three quarters of a mile to get home everyday.

One the neighbor kids ran up, seeing me coming up the street - since she was young enough to be going to Ramona, she was already home.

I was the first one on the scene. The firemen were still putting it out and cleaning up.

My dog was standing in the doorway, frantic. Coco was our brown, mostly poodle that we'd gotten the Christmas Dad died. Hmm. I was 13 - she would have been 6 then. She lived to be 11 -

I remember giving my schoolbooks to the neighbor kid, calling the dog over, picking her up and taking her to the neighbors to get her cleaned up. I was wearing sandals, purple hip-hugger bell-bottomed pants with a white eyelet, angel-winged smock top that tied in the back - lucky for me, because I had to wear one of my first bras under it. Otherwise, I'd have been without any from that point.

I remember trying to get the dog cleaned up in a bathroom sink, then after they took her from me to go clean her off in their pool in the backyard, trying to get the ashes out of my blouse...it gets fuzzy after that.

Mom was a visiting nurse at this point, and my step-father was AWOL. I think Sis got home next...maybe. It was a while.

It's 1974. No pagers. No cell phones. I told the authorities (whether it was police or fire, I don't remember) that Mom worked out of the VNA office in San Jacinto, and they told them to tell her to go home as soon as they heard from her. That would be when she finished with her last patient, or when she hit the office. No idea when that would be.

I remember being sat down with a freshly baked cake, the icing was still warm. I remember the neighbors - a family of French-speaking Canadian Catholics - and illegal aliens. They'd later get deported. But they were there, and I remember Mrs. LeBlanc sitting me down, feeding me cake and asking me where the rest of my family was, and one of their five kids would bring another one of us in. I think Sis was first, but younger brother must have been a close second. The LeBlanc's had been the ones to call the fire in - and tried to put it out with their garden hose. Did I spend the night there? I must have.

When Mom got there, she was the last one - and only had her brand new uniform to wear. I don't think I ever saw her in it again.

We were moved into a rental - the five of us. A two-bedroom condo out in the middle of nowhere. The Ponderosa, out on Gibbel Road. It had been an innovation in its time - and not suited for kids. Sis was 14, I was 13 and brother was 11.

I had two books. There were three records - one for each of us, and you could only play "your" record unless you got permission from your sib. Needless to say, no, permission was rarely granted. Sis was territorial to a fault and never allowed anyone to use things that were hers. I had my tape recorder - a cassette player - and found a few tapes I'd taken off the television. *snarfles* The Osmonds from Saturday Morning television. Oh the horror. That's it folks. We'd be out there until July. 12 miles from town. No cable, no sattelite. No, not even FM radio. Three channels, black and white and they didn't come in for shit. Not allowed to use the phone - everything was a toll call from that distance.

My little brother came down with spinal meningitis out there. He'd had a step throat and developed it from there. Because Mom was a nurse, and knew everyone in town? She got to keep him at home. He had fevers over 105 and became delirious. Mom would soak him in a tub of cool water to break the fevers. Yanno, he was never the same after that, either. I think he started using soon after that - but it would be decades before anyone knew.

There were no baking pans. I used to bake "snacking cake" - that's what it was called, because you only needed one pan. No measuring cups, no spoons, no bowls. I made "frosting" out of Carnation Instant Breakfast and water. Not half bad, if you had nothing else to compare it to.

It was a condominium community of retirees. There were no other people my own age anywhere nearby.

I made myself a set of dolls out of the rags Mom made from old sheets, and colored their faces with colored pencils. I still have them tucked away somewhere.

I still made friends with the neighbors - and any time something went down in the condo that step-father didn't want anyone to know about? Me. All because I was out and about talking to other people. I must have said something to somebody.

Nevermind we were trying to raise baby pigs, goat kids, etc. on bottles inside the condo in addition to the overload situation already in place. No, nobody was going to figure that out if nobody talked to anyone. *eyes roll*

And then the dog (another one, one we had at the second house) had 15 puppies. In the closet next to my bed, and I cried listening to her - all night long. I thought the pillow was just wet with tears, but in the morning I discovered I'd had a nosebleed all that time and you can guess the rest. It's the only time I remember crying. And Sis was bitchy because I'd kept her awake with it.

I know Mom and step-father ended up in small claims court over the contractual violations in that place. Mom never said a thing to me about it directly.

We were underinsured so far below what it would have taken to repair or replace what we had, it wasn't funny. That ended up in court, but for every thing we could recall to place on the inventory? The adjuster would take that figure - reduce it due to "sentimental value" that we must have put on it - and then discounted that by 70%.

They restored some things, sure. They took an antique grandfather clock and put contact paper over it instead of refinishing it properly - and did nothing to repair the works. (That clock would later be lost in one of the three burglaries.)

We moved back into the house over the 4th of July weekend, and still ended up doing most of the finishing work ourselves. The walls, the floors, the cabinets...you name it. We lost the converted garage/family room entirely - which put more people in less room, with less of everything than ever. No furniture. We got some single beds, tossed some fake fur throws over them and called them couches. Odds and ends of whatever everyplace else.

That house would burn down to the ground again in 1995. It was never quite right until then - because at that point, it was properly insured and was built back properly. Better than it ever had been. But that's another story for another day.

But until I left home - it was a matter of make it do, or do without. And there was much doing without.

Christmas decorations. Photographs. Records. Books. Baby books, for crying out loud. Sheesh. The minutiae is endless.

So, yeah. I remember.

Sis would come in contact with the insurance adjuster again, once she finished school and began college - one of her first jobs was intake for adult day care, and he presented as a client. With inoperable brain cancer. She says she went cold as she really saw her first case of "karma being a bitch" and "what goes around, really DID come around."

The LeBlancs were deported - and somehow, I ended up being the one girl my age's enemy - don't know how. There were some bullies in the neighborhood then - guess that's what happened. Could I have hurt her by error and been oblivious? Absolutely. I'm sure of it.

My aunt provided Mom with some copies of photographs of us she had this last Spring, that were taken prior to 1974. Those are very scarce on the ground, as you might imagine. Little brother scanned them in - I really need to get that copy of Photoshop and do some restoration on them.

And you won't find a more sympathetic audience than me if you fall on hard times. But don't be surprised if I seem a little callous -

You can't imagine how much I love CDs. I was just thinking about it the other day. I have some that are over ten years old. That's a huge amount of time to have something without it getting old and ruined...and losing it.

And then I remembered. And I think of my back house full of crap I haven't used in three years and laugh.

FireFireFire

I can't help it. I keep thinking about divalea's fire and my mind keeps going back. One, two, three house fires. But the first one was by far the worst - and as I keep thinking about it, I also mentally step back and go 'whoa' a few times.

May 23, 1974. I was thirteen. fourminutes, for your benefit? I'm going to refer to some places. You'll get the scale.

Back then, I was in 7th grade, and attending Hemet Junior High School - over behind the hospital? That's where it was then. Back then, there was bus service only out to Stanford and Mayberry - the house was between Cornell and Dartmouth on Whittier. Yup, most days? Had to walk it. ALL THAT WAY. It's about 10 miles. I lied a lot and jumped on the bus - that got me home sooner, but I still had to walk about half to three quarters of a mile to get home everyday.

One the neighbor kids ran up, seeing me coming up the street - since she was young enough to be going to Ramona, she was already home.

I was the first one on the scene. The firemen were still putting it out and cleaning up.

My dog was standing in the doorway, frantic. Coco was our brown, mostly poodle that we'd gotten the Christmas Dad died. Hmm. I was 13 - she would have been 6 then. She lived to be 11 -

I remember giving my schoolbooks to the neighbor kid, calling the dog over, picking her up and taking her to the neighbors to get her cleaned up. I was wearing sandals, purple hip-hugger bell-bottomed pants with a white eyelet, angel-winged smock top that tied in the back - lucky for me, because I had to wear one of my first bras under it. Otherwise, I'd have been without any from that point.

I remember trying to get the dog cleaned up in a bathroom sink, then after they took her from me to go clean her off in their pool in the backyard, trying to get the ashes out of my blouse...it gets fuzzy after that.

Mom was a visiting nurse at this point, and my step-father was AWOL. I think Sis got home next...maybe. It was a while.

It's 1974. No pagers. No cell phones. I told the authorities (whether it was police or fire, I don't remember) that Mom worked out of the VNA office in San Jacinto, and they told them to tell her to go home as soon as they heard from her. That would be when she finished with her last patient, or when she hit the office. No idea when that would be.

I remember being sat down with a freshly baked cake, the icing was still warm. I remember the neighbors - a family of French-speaking Canadian Catholics - and illegal aliens. They'd later get deported. But they were there, and I remember Mrs. LeBlanc sitting me down, feeding me cake and asking me where the rest of my family was, and one of their five kids would bring another one of us in. I think Sis was first, but younger brother must have been a close second. The LeBlanc's had been the ones to call the fire in - and tried to put it out with their garden hose. Did I spend the night there? I must have.

When Mom got there, she was the last one - and only had her brand new uniform to wear. I don't think I ever saw her in it again.

We were moved into a rental - the five of us. A two-bedroom condo out in the middle of nowhere. The Ponderosa, out on Gibbel Road. It had been an innovation in its time - and not suited for kids. Sis was 14, I was 13 and brother was 11.

I had two books. There were three records - one for each of us, and you could only play "your" record unless you got permission from your sib. Needless to say, no, permission was rarely granted. Sis was territorial to a fault and never allowed anyone to use things that were hers. I had my tape recorder - a cassette player - and found a few tapes I'd taken off the television. *snarfles* The Osmonds from Saturday Morning television. Oh the horror. That's it folks. We'd be out there until July. 12 miles from town. No cable, no sattelite. No, not even FM radio. Three channels, black and white and they didn't come in for shit. Not allowed to use the phone - everything was a toll call from that distance.

My little brother came down with spinal meningitis out there. He'd had a step throat and developed it from there. Because Mom was a nurse, and knew everyone in town? She got to keep him at home. He had fevers over 105 and became delirious. Mom would soak him in a tub of cool water to break the fevers. Yanno, he was never the same after that, either. I think he started using soon after that - but it would be decades before anyone knew.

There were no baking pans. I used to bake "snacking cake" - that's what it was called, because you only needed one pan. No measuring cups, no spoons, no bowls. I made "frosting" out of Carnation Instant Breakfast and water. Not half bad, if you had nothing else to compare it to.

It was a condominium community of retirees. There were no other people my own age anywhere nearby.

I made myself a set of dolls out of the rags Mom made from old sheets, and colored their faces with colored pencils. I still have them tucked away somewhere.

I still made friends with the neighbors - and any time something went down in the condo that step-father didn't want anyone to know about? Me. All because I was out and about talking to other people. I must have said something to somebody.

Nevermind we were trying to raise baby pigs, goat kids, etc. on bottles inside the condo in addition to the overload situation already in place. No, nobody was going to figure that out if nobody talked to anyone. *eyes roll*

And then the dog (another one, one we had at the second house) had 15 puppies. In the closet next to my bed, and I cried listening to her - all night long. I thought the pillow was just wet with tears, but in the morning I discovered I'd had a nosebleed all that time and you can guess the rest. It's the only time I remember crying. And Sis was bitchy because I'd kept her awake with it.

I know Mom and step-father ended up in small claims court over the contractual violations in that place. Mom never said a thing to me about it directly.

We were underinsured so far below what it would have taken to repair or replace what we had, it wasn't funny. That ended up in court, but for every thing we could recall to place on the inventory? The adjuster would take that figure - reduce it due to "sentimental value" that we must have put on it - and then discounted that by 70%.

They restored some things, sure. They took an antique grandfather clock and put contact paper over it instead of refinishing it properly - and did nothing to repair the works. (That clock would later be lost in one of the three burglaries.)

We moved back into the house over the 4th of July weekend, and still ended up doing most of the finishing work ourselves. The walls, the floors, the cabinets...you name it. We lost the converted garage/family room entirely - which put more people in less room, with less of everything than ever. No furniture. We got some single beds, tossed some fake fur throws over them and called them couches. Odds and ends of whatever everyplace else.

That house would burn down to the ground again in 1995. It was never quite right until then - because at that point, it was properly insured and was built back properly. Better than it ever had been. But that's another story for another day.

But until I left home - it was a matter of make it do, or do without. And there was much doing without.

Christmas decorations. Photographs. Records. Books. Baby books, for crying out loud. Sheesh. The minutiae is endless.

So, yeah. I remember.

Sis would come in contact with the insurance adjuster again, once she finished school and began college - one of her first jobs was intake for adult day care, and he presented as a client. With inoperable brain cancer. She says she went cold as she really saw her first case of "karma being a bitch" and "what goes around, really DID come around."

The LeBlancs were deported - and somehow, I ended up being the one girl my age's enemy - don't know how. There were some bullies in the neighborhood then - guess that's what happened. Could I have hurt her by error and been oblivious? Absolutely. I'm sure of it.

My aunt provided Mom with some copies of photographs of us she had this last Spring, that were taken prior to 1974. Those are very scarce on the ground, as you might imagine. Little brother scanned them in - I really need to get that copy of Photoshop and do some restoration on them.

And you won't find a more sympathetic audience than me if you fall on hard times. But don't be surprised if I seem a little callous -

You can't imagine how much I love CDs. I was just thinking about it the other day. I have some that are over ten years old. That's a huge amount of time to have something without it getting old and ruined...and losing it.

And then I remembered. And I think of my back house full of crap I haven't used in three years and laugh.

FireFireFire

I can't help it. I keep thinking about divalea's fire and my mind keeps going back. One, two, three house fires. But the first one was by far the worst - and as I keep thinking about it, I also mentally step back and go 'whoa' a few times.

May 23, 1974. I was thirteen. fourminutes, for your benefit? I'm going to refer to some places. You'll get the scale.

Back then, I was in 7th grade, and attending Hemet Junior High School - over behind the hospital? That's where it was then. Back then, there was bus service only out to Stanford and Mayberry - the house was between Cornell and Dartmouth on Whittier. Yup, most days? Had to walk it. ALL THAT WAY. It's about 10 miles. I lied a lot and jumped on the bus - that got me home sooner, but I still had to walk about half to three quarters of a mile to get home everyday.

One the neighbor kids ran up, seeing me coming up the street - since she was young enough to be going to Ramona, she was already home.

I was the first one on the scene. The firemen were still putting it out and cleaning up.

My dog was standing in the doorway, frantic. Coco was our brown, mostly poodle that we'd gotten the Christmas Dad died. Hmm. I was 13 - she would have been 6 then. She lived to be 11 -

I remember giving my schoolbooks to the neighbor kid, calling the dog over, picking her up and taking her to the neighbors to get her cleaned up. I was wearing sandals, purple hip-hugger bell-bottomed pants with a white eyelet, angel-winged smock top that tied in the back - lucky for me, because I had to wear one of my first bras under it. Otherwise, I'd have been without any from that point.

I remember trying to get the dog cleaned up in a bathroom sink, then after they took her from me to go clean her off in their pool in the backyard, trying to get the ashes out of my blouse...it gets fuzzy after that.

Mom was a visiting nurse at this point, and my step-father was AWOL. I think Sis got home next...maybe. It was a while.

It's 1974. No pagers. No cell phones. I told the authorities (whether it was police or fire, I don't remember) that Mom worked out of the VNA office in San Jacinto, and they told them to tell her to go home as soon as they heard from her. That would be when she finished with her last patient, or when she hit the office. No idea when that would be.

I remember being sat down with a freshly baked cake, the icing was still warm. I remember the neighbors - a family of French-speaking Canadian Catholics - and illegal aliens. They'd later get deported. But they were there, and I remember Mrs. LeBlanc sitting me down, feeding me cake and asking me where the rest of my family was, and one of their five kids would bring another one of us in. I think Sis was first, but younger brother must have been a close second. The LeBlanc's had been the ones to call the fire in - and tried to put it out with their garden hose. Did I spend the night there? I must have.

When Mom got there, she was the last one - and only had her brand new uniform to wear. I don't think I ever saw her in it again.

We were moved into a rental - the five of us. A two-bedroom condo out in the middle of nowhere. The Ponderosa, out on Gibbel Road. It had been an innovation in its time - and not suited for kids. Sis was 14, I was 13 and brother was 11.

I had two books. There were three records - one for each of us, and you could only play "your" record unless you got permission from your sib. Needless to say, no, permission was rarely granted. Sis was territorial to a fault and never allowed anyone to use things that were hers. I had my tape recorder - a cassette player - and found a few tapes I'd taken off the television. *snarfles* The Osmonds from Saturday Morning television. Oh the horror. That's it folks. We'd be out there until July. 12 miles from town. No cable, no sattelite. No, not even FM radio. Three channels, black and white and they didn't come in for shit. Not allowed to use the phone - everything was a toll call from that distance.

My little brother came down with spinal meningitis out there. He'd had a step throat and developed it from there. Because Mom was a nurse, and knew everyone in town? She got to keep him at home. He had fevers over 105 and became delirious. Mom would soak him in a tub of cool water to break the fevers. Yanno, he was never the same after that, either. I think he started using soon after that - but it would be decades before anyone knew.

There were no baking pans. I used to bake "snacking cake" - that's what it was called, because you only needed one pan. No measuring cups, no spoons, no bowls. I made "frosting" out of Carnation Instant Breakfast and water. Not half bad, if you had nothing else to compare it to.

It was a condominium community of retirees. There were no other people my own age anywhere nearby.

I made myself a set of dolls out of the rags Mom made from old sheets, and colored their faces with colored pencils. I still have them tucked away somewhere.

I still made friends with the neighbors - and any time something went down in the condo that step-father didn't want anyone to know about? Me. All because I was out and about talking to other people. I must have said something to somebody.

Nevermind we were trying to raise baby pigs, goat kids, etc. on bottles inside the condo in addition to the overload situation already in place. No, nobody was going to figure that out if nobody talked to anyone. *eyes roll*

And then the dog (another one, one we had at the second house) had 15 puppies. In the closet next to my bed, and I cried listening to her - all night long. I thought the pillow was just wet with tears, but in the morning I discovered I'd had a nosebleed all that time and you can guess the rest. It's the only time I remember crying. And Sis was bitchy because I'd kept her awake with it.

I know Mom and step-father ended up in small claims court over the contractual violations in that place. Mom never said a thing to me about it directly.

We were underinsured so far below what it would have taken to repair or replace what we had, it wasn't funny. That ended up in court, but for every thing we could recall to place on the inventory? The adjuster would take that figure - reduce it due to "sentimental value" that we must have put on it - and then discounted that by 70%.

They restored some things, sure. They took an antique grandfather clock and put contact paper over it instead of refinishing it properly - and did nothing to repair the works. (That clock would later be lost in one of the three burglaries.)

We moved back into the house over the 4th of July weekend, and still ended up doing most of the finishing work ourselves. The walls, the floors, the cabinets...you name it. We lost the converted garage/family room entirely - which put more people in less room, with less of everything than ever. No furniture. We got some single beds, tossed some fake fur throws over them and called them couches. Odds and ends of whatever everyplace else.

That house would burn down to the ground again in 1995. It was never quite right until then - because at that point, it was properly insured and was built back properly. Better than it ever had been. But that's another story for another day.

But until I left home - it was a matter of make it do, or do without. And there was much doing without.

Christmas decorations. Photographs. Records. Books. Baby books, for crying out loud. Sheesh. The minutiae is endless.

So, yeah. I remember.

Sis would come in contact with the insurance adjuster again, once she finished school and began college - one of her first jobs was intake for adult day care, and he presented as a client. With inoperable brain cancer. She says she went cold as she really saw her first case of "karma being a bitch" and "what goes around, really DID come around."

The LeBlancs were deported - and somehow, I ended up being the one girl my age's enemy - don't know how. There were some bullies in the neighborhood then - guess that's what happened. Could I have hurt her by error and been oblivious? Absolutely. I'm sure of it.

My aunt provided Mom with some copies of photographs of us she had this last Spring, that were taken prior to 1974. Those are very scarce on the ground, as you might imagine. Little brother scanned them in - I really need to get that copy of Photoshop and do some restoration on them.

And you won't find a more sympathetic audience than me if you fall on hard times. But don't be surprised if I seem a little callous -

You can't imagine how much I love CDs. I was just thinking about it the other day. I have some that are over ten years old. That's a huge amount of time to have something without it getting old and ruined...and losing it.

And then I remembered. And I think of my back house full of crap I haven't used in three years and laugh.