#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.