#EvacueeDiary VI Drive Out, Not Drive By

I wish at this point of the story I had done something edgy and cinematic. Lit a joint off a burning gas main. Delivered a Latin phrase nobody could translate. “Altadena Legitimus Corrubundrum.” Something worthy of a movie.

I didn’t.

Sweetie and I got back in the car and left.

We took the same route I had the night before except the Armenian school that had once been the home of Altadena Crane was gone and you could see into Glendale because so were the trees. Cool Phil at the corner Chevron was gonna need to find a new place to work. The gas station was gone as was the Altadena Community Church where my boy scout troop 76 met. 

Altadena’s yearly pancake breakfast parade is called Old Fashioned Days, for a western town Altadena is old and when we drove down the parade route the morning of January 8th.

The parade was over and it would never be old again. 

The commercial street of Altadena Lake Ave, was thoroughly ravaged from Altadena Dr, to New York. The Ace Smoke Shop that was a tiny house before they were cool, Lindsey’s liquor store that was a neighborhood fixture through 3 different owners the first a Black entrepreneur from Pop’s hometown of Mobile Alabama with each subsequent owner becoming family to the foundations gone, Our bank was gone, the junior high I went to was burning and it was still windy.

I know it’s trite, but it’s true when it is you. You never think it’s going to be you, Living in Southern California you can remember lots of stories and incidents where a few exits from the freeways are closed, and beyond the lines terrible things are happening, it was our time to drive out of it and not drive by it, and we did back to my mom’s house in View Park and into a town that despite the smoke and the news was behaving normally.

We watched the disaster from the very comfortable space mom kept for visitors and our use. The scale of the disaster was breathtaking, and don’t you know one news report started at the top of Highland and panned across 1255 to start their report of how Altadena took a punch segment. 

We connected with family on social media and we connected with each other on the phone. My daughter and grandsons live 2 blocks from the fire line of destruction, her in laws saw structures burned across the street. 

Everybody was physically fine, no one was injured and many of my neighbors in Altadena were the night before. When I woke up the next morning January 9th I was like a boxer still answering the bell. I woke up, opened the app from my employer Swing Education, saw an attractive class, and took it. I began going through the familiar routine of getting ready for a class when I imagined a kid being reminded of the fire and I began to projectile cry. I was not thinking correctly even accepting the gig. I think I did some 280 dates at 140 schools and never called one off on my own volition, but I did that day. I called Swing to cancel and told them I lived in Altadena, and let my nose get over my skis a bit accepting positions. Swing Education responded with what will turn out to be a theme of #EvacueeDiary, human kindness and understanding. Not only did they understand they would like me to accept 100 bucks in a gift card and do please take all the time you need.

If I could share any advice on how to react from this perspective, it is to accept all the help offered and because you can’t accept everything, try to feel the thoughts and prayers. They were palpable, that Sunday I felt wave after wave of them as my family and friends went to church and shared what happened in Altadena. 

It felt like Linus losing his blanket for the next couple of weeks. The enormity of what had happened would hit and we’d feel individually and as a couple woozy, then the realization that everyone was alright and we were missing things would occur and stability would return only to remember the notebook your coach filled with notes of your games was gone too and the blanket snatched away.

I wrote haiku and we began dealing with claims adjusters. I decided I wanted a new car.

Don’t make war on tears
Battles are for enemies
Tears transmute the pain

#EvacueeDiary V Poetry Therapy

 

Before the story could move across the country, it had to sit still for a minute.

These are the small poems from the smoke, the sirens, the moon, the road, and the quiet places Sweetie and I found after the fire.

Haiku became a way to breathe in three lines.

1/7

In Los Angeles
The dreams have a smokey hue 
I want to wake

1/14

The moon seems angry
Luna glows like her brother
City lights question

1/15

That’s my city now
Electric light orchestra
Spaceship of angels

1/16

Tell us a story
Time only tells where you are
I watch where I Am

1/20

City dreams of sleep
Quiet and a siren sings
Promissory note

1/21

Pearls dance in the sky
Pushing down a Century
Welcome to LA

1/23

Concrete permanence
Tomorrows portals still stand
Welcoming futures

1/24

And her eyes are there
Amid stunning distractions
The décolletage

1/25

Welcoming the storm
Embers burn please be sad Sky
Tears extinguish grief

1/26

Exceptional shine
The space between Yin and Ysng
I exist as line

1/29

Don’t make war on tears
Battles are for enemies
Tears transmute the pain

2/4

Standing sentinel
They form a line by themselves
In Altadena

2/5

Sirens tell a tale
Misty circumstances smile
Her behind the veil

2/14

Don’t turn the lights out
Scorpio baby making
February moon

3/10

Hazy familiar
Ready I will shower you
Wash your hair with care

3/14

This Laguna Beach
The waves crashing delicious
I’m famished for sweets

#EvacueeDiary IV On 60 years to do the most stupid thing

Our stretch of Altadena had a curious way of staying in touch. The meetings were usually called to order about 1:30 am with the screeeeeech BANG! Of a car smacking a parked car on Altadena Dr, or crushing a car poking its nose above Holliston, Highland, or Ganesha. It’s how we met our neighbors like Jennifer who spent the 70’s bobbing in the South China Sea after her father, an officer in the army of South Vietnam somehow got his family on a boat to do it.

We met the neighbor outside our local automotive carnage zone on the night of January 7th when we saw her standing in front of her familiar house. She was holding a pet chicken and talking to a news reporter about how it was the only one she could grab, while her house burned like it was a set under the direction of a director with an unlimited budget and the mandate to get the most chilling scene of an entire house burning as they could. 

We spent the night like that, at mom’s house lying in a bed we were comfortable in, in a house that was very comfortable, and watched Altadena lose its comfort.

It was a hard night to sleep. Somehow we both managed to close our eyes for a few hours that night but by daybreak that escape was done. The news had filled with reports of not just Altadena on fire but also Pacific Palisades and the LA basin reflected it. When I walked out to the balcony outside of Dave’s office I was greeted with this vision

It was then I turned to my Sweetie Darling and asked if we should see if our house made it, and my Patsy got in the car with her Edina and we headed back up to Altadena, marking the most stupid as a fish with breasts thing I had yet to embark upon in my then 60 years on Earth. It was less than 12 hours after we got the order to evacuate we headed back up to Altadena and it was still actively burning.

There were police out, and all they had for us was FOOL WHERE ARE YOU GOING! looks none tried to stop us as we went up the back ways only residents who want to avoid the police going up the hill know to take, and once we got north of New York Dr going north on Holliston we could see the country club where I learned to threaten golf balls cheerily on fire. We dipped around it up Holliston and both sides of the street were on fire. I drove over electric lines that I assured Sweetie must be de-engergized and heard explosions all about as I imagined people's propane tanks that warmed their backyards or fueled their barbecues popping off.

We snaked our way up Ganesha where I cautiously poked the nose of my car out and right onto Altadena Dr, and you know what my mind saw 1255. It was there behind the Deodar, it was there like the days Victor Lewis walked an extra block past Ganesha to walk me home because I was afraid of dogs, it was there. Until I got to Highland right in front of my house and it simply wasn't. I looked in my front yard and saw almost to the mountains themselves, my house was gone, Jennifers house next door I watched them put loving care into making a showplace was a smoldering heap. My entire block was a smoldering heap, except for the house of our neighbor, the one who said "that's nice" at the idea of the fire staying in the hills. His house survived, if you want to call being next to 1255 when it burned survival. It had every plastic artifact and the trees in the yard burned off. 

1255 looked as if it served as the launchpad of a Saturn V rocket. The grass was gone and the soil beneath it crunched like glass underneath. It was unbelievable. The gas had not been shut off in the neighborhood and the pipe of its service had a full on conflagration coming out of it, and my first thought was "gonna be a big ass gas bill this month". Your mind races, it stops, every atom of your body screams what the fuck?

The hose I had intended to fight the fire with was left as an imprint on the grass where I dropped it, the deodar I spent my mornings under drinking coffee and waiting for a teacher to call in sick looked like Daffy Duck after. performing the act you can only do once. 1255 had an elevator, the car was made of fine Mahogany, many of my friends got their first kisses in it, 1255 hosted some of the most epic teen parties of the early 80's and the shaft had collapsed and was lying in the basement and part of the front yard. There wasn't an atom of wood left.

Know the scene in Princess Bride where Wesley is in the pain machine and it gets ramped up to 10? Know the whimper he made? Sweetie and I made it together and hugged. So many memories just gone, and we didn't even get to say goodbye to 1255 and it was gone.

It was here #Evacueediary truly began. 

We were homeless. 

#EvacueeDiary III Run Forest Run!

 My generation was raised with plans to respond to epic disasters. We practiced to duck and cover the last Friday of every month if the Soviet Union struck, we had routes and planned and cars with earthquake kits in them, I had them for fire. I was going to get the documents kept organized in our safe, pictures, my diploma, all manner of things. Those plans were made for waking and smelling smoke, oh no the house is on fire, but that’s not what was going on January 7th 2025 in Altadena,

What was happening in Altadena was the Eaton fire as it was to become known, it was a wind storm still to me. I finished closing all the windows starting from the 3rd floor, heading down to the second and all the bedrooms. Familiar vistas and the smell of smoke. That was new, not that the other fires in the foothills were smokeless this time it felt like Satan was having a cookout next door. To say I had abandoned all thought of fighting the fire from my roof is an understatement, I became a fierce advocate if bugging out and to that end I packed for what was in my mind a few days over mom’s house, 

I went to my closet and grabbed my teacher's garanamels Sweetie had assembled for me, three shirts, three pairs of pants and 5 pairs of drawers, because accidents happen. It was a Tuesday and I selected clothes for three days of school. I pushed them in my teacher bag along with Ella Flutesgerald, my flute, a JBL music cube, and Percy the Rescue Penguin. Percy joined me soon into my teaching career where I saw him in the middle of an east los angeles street, and I was moved to get out and pick him up. He became an ambassador I used to visit with frightened kindergarten kids not so sure about the big ole half a scary Black Santa substitute. I could tell them about Percy and how he was afraid until he met me and that he loved his new job going to school with Mr, Johnson, so I didn’t even pack Percy he just lived in the bag.

Sweetie had filled her car, and I got in it and put my teacher bag between my legs and hollered out the window of her car “LET’S GO!” as she was completing another round of stuffing things, into her car. 

Sweetie became Sweetie to me from Absolutely Fabulous. Her full name is Sweetie Darling in this context and I Am Edina Monsoon. I was fully Edina that night when she asked me, If I had lost my mind getting in her car, and not my own, these questions where soon followed by ones along the lines of the HHR I used to ferry myself about was empty? All I had was my teacher bag? And I can look back now and see her recalculating things she was going to take with us and directing my activity to filling my car, I made sounds like Qbert when he fell of his blocks, but in less than 20 minutes I got my car mostly full of little grey boxes. I got in the HHR and it didn’t have any gas, I had to stop and get some, and my soul sister had had enough of me. I left 1255 and headed down the hill in the same way I had for decades, To school, to work, to the movies on a date, head west on Altadena Dr, past the Armenian school that used to be Altadena Crane’s house, past the church where I was a boyscout and the gas station on the corner where cool Phil worked and south on Lake. 

I got some gas and it took almost 2 hours to get into Los Angeles where mom lived. Tuesday January 7th had a tremendous wind event, there were trees down everywhere and behind me Altadena was burning, maybe even my house, but i didn’t know. I was waiting for Sweetie to pull in behind me and she did about 20 minutes later telling stories of the fire is close, and dates from the palm trees on fire and raining on her car.

#EvacueeDiary II — We Were Never Coming Back to This House

By American standards for a western community Altadena is old. It was founded primarily by eastern families that made their fortunes in the 1800’s. My house was built by JW Clise. He made his fortune by arriving in Seattle soon after it suffered a great fire and established a real estate empire that still exists. He had 1255 built after his wife Anna became ill.

We had grown complacent about the fires in the hills. If you lived in Altadena for a while you got used to them. There had been other serious fires, the Station fire for one comes to mind, but they always stayed on the mountain. We would watch them burn with a sort of detachment, the fires never came off the hills as far as Altadena Dr. not even close.

That complacency created a sort of bravado. During the Station fire I posted up on the roof of 1255 with a garden hose and sprayed it with water. I was confident I could spot fight anything that hit the roof and caught fire, I was a regular junior fireman. On the night of the Eaton fire I made similar plans. I gathered up my hose from the front yard where I saw my neighbor packing his dogs for departure. He was new to the neighborhood moving in next door after a long time resident who built on what had been the vacant lot we played in as children next door. He asked me about my plans, and I told him the fires just burned on the mountain, then around the corner to Lake St., when they were really bad they might go to La Vina on the west side of town, but never would it come off the mountain to Altadena Dr. He kind of smiled at me said "no kidding?" then continued to put his stuff in his car. I shrugged and went back in the house.

When I got there Sweetie was in the midst of an operation to get our stuff out of the house. We had planned massive remodeling. We were prepared to put our belongings in plastic containers with handles on them to fight the dust and dreck of the impending work. She had gone into overtime placing shoes and clothes and a variety of things she had planned to take with us in them.

I, on the other hand, complained about it. I said "Sweetie we're just going to have to unpack all this stuff" I was thinking I was going to have to unpack all that stuff, but she paid me no mind, and strongly suggested I begin doing the same then she said something that I will always remember, she told me we were never coming back to this house.

Then the wind changed gears, from 2nd at 40 mph to 3rd hitting 60 and still pulling hard. Clise was a horticulturist, in Seattle his estate became a public garden. In Altadena our yard was full of majestic and interesting trees, and none of them enjoyed nearly hurricane force winds, 1255 didn’t either. It had sleeping porches with windows that would blow open and when a few did I began to batten down the house's hatches, and when I heard one go bang on the eastern side of the house I started there and looked out the window to see if I could see the fire. I could, it erupted over the hill behind 1255 with flames the size of a cruise ship. I called Sweetie over, she did note the progress, we took some pictures, and then

#EvacueeDiary The Sun Rising in the East

Sweetie knew there was going to be a problem. She had for the last few days been discussing the weather and a wind event. I was not as impressed. I was looking forward to a class of 2nd graders and the start of the winter semester. After decades in sales, the last few selling insurance…

I had become a substitute after the Covid epidemic. 

I think I’ve always had a teacher’s spirit—even when I was a sales rep.

The best part wasn’t closing the deal.

It was that moment when someone really understood what I was trying to show them.

That feeling stayed with me.

I didn’t recognize it fully until I became a teacher, in the three years before the fire.

Even then, it never felt like work.

It felt like kickball, like the magic of the 9, like being right where I was supposed to be.

I felt it again out on the road, in RV camps.

There’s something about finding your spirit—and your life—at the same time.

Especially at 61.

January 7, 2025 was a Tuesday, and I had just secured a class at a school I enjoyed with my favorite age of kids when I noticed two things happening within about an hour of each other. We had always had Santa Ana winds, but these were different. Santa Ana winds gust up to 50 maybe 60 miles per hour and then back down, but these whipped up to 50 and 60 and stayed then gusted to 80. I opened my front door to palm fronds wildly dancing and thought Auntie Em Auntie Em and closed the door and went back to my office. 

A little while later I heard the first one, an emergency vehicle racing down Altadena Drive. That wasn’t unusual. Emergency vehicles often used Altadena Drive as the east-west thoroughfare through Altadena. But then one was followed by another. Then three more. Then two more in quick succession.

When I looked east, in the direction they were flowing, I saw what looked like the sunrise.

At five in the evening, the sun rising in the east can’t be a good thing.

I walked to the end of the driveway and looked toward Eaton Canyon. I could see flames—and not just flames, angry walls of them.

Brilliant Sci Fi Collaboration Story

Hello Brilliancy,

A couple of days ago my friend from Twitter mentioned a concept. She discussed how different the world might be if men had to feel what women did.  Among many fanciful things I shared that I'd toyed with that concept as the catalyst of the New Feminine Age, She said words to the effect that we should do a collaborative story, I told her we could use my Dad's barn and my Mom would make the curtains, and let's put on a show.

She had lots of ideas of how to use twitter and etc, but y'all know me I'm an Adept I'm here to help people shine by shining myself.

So here goes a few bars I'm going to drop on her Twitter stream and see if she wants to come up to the lab and see what's on the slab.

Good and bad hair

Whether you’re dark or you’re fair!

The exclamation marks I sang too. It was a wonderful morning and not just because he broke into his game stash for a 100 dollar bill and told me to go get my hair done with it. He held me last night like a Jill Scott song, long and lovely He never even tried to get any even though I gave him some, and lawd it was like we’ve never been closer.

As I was getting out of the Subaru and bouncing to the shop I noticed my gas tank was on full and I started to wonder just what he’d done. I also took a moment to notice Betelgeuse. It was daytime but for the last 3 days you could see it. Desmond had shown it to me after he’d busted in our room smelling of the Newports he knew I couldn’t stand and started screaming about a Nova.  Come to think of it, he hasn’t smelled like old Las Vegas in days either.

I was looking forward to 3 or 4 hours of pamper and care and right before I hit the door in anticipation of the nice glass of white wine one of the assistants would give me and the dish from the stylist I took a long drag from the weed vape.

I could tell Charles was thinking of something else, but that was no excuse for him not to greet a customer and not one that is as regular as me. Ten minutes he looked at his phone muttering and he didn’t even share the Gay dish that might have made the wait worth it, no one was getting their hair washed. It was till early and only a few stations had the familiar clack clack of the marcels coming out of hot irons to make bad hair good.

Tag! Someone else is it. Saturday December 15th