Wildfires

I was born in Pasadena, California but lived in Altadena. We lived there a dozen years with the exception of 3 years on the Mojave Desert. Coming back to the same home in Altadena we had left 3 years earlier, my folks realized we needed a larger home. We built a new house in Glendora to the west of Altadena and at the base of Mount Baldy. Altadena and Glendora are on the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountain range. Forest fires were always a threat, but we rarely had one close to our home. Of course, rainy seasons in winter after a forest fire were chancy for floods and mudslides. We had plenty of the latter!

We left California in 1954 and resettled in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Both locales were life changing; oh, so different!

Now, looking back at previous homes in the 1940’s and 50’s, it is a shuddering experience to think of those homes endangered by a raging fire. The streets, sidewalks, trees, shrubs and flowers are stark memories growing up. Thinking them incinerated is unthinkable. I know this seems unreasonable, but memories are held dear; destruction means the memories are of places and times no longer reachable. It is a lonely feeling, a feeling of loss after all these years.

We lived through earthquakes, storms, and regional forest fires. We experienced the aftermath of those events. We know of them intimately. But destruction? Total destruction? Somehow it feels impossible.

New England had storms, mostly snowy ones. Pittsfield was hilly, not mountainous, so avalanches were not a worry. Heavy, wet snow was a trial of effort, inconvenience and unbelievable beauty. No threat of destruction, however. And so, memories of the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts are safe for me. I fear no erasure of them.

California life, especially the southern region, taught us to be careful about our brush land and forested mountains. It instructed us on the scarcity of water and the delicate nature of mankind and mother nature. We conserved. We safeguarded our land. It was second nature to us. How different that all is from our experience living in New England and Illinois.

My midwestern friends don’t think to conserve water or developing untold amounts of waste. My family and I always have kept this in mind. My kids always wondered about this because their school friends didn’t think about such things at all. Best we all do, however; protecting the planet is also a defense for climate change. We all need to be thinking about our natural resources and the wear and tear our lifestyle delivers to the planet.

Meanwhile I will mourn the threatened neighborhoods of yesteryear and hope the memories remain fresh and vivid as they always have.

January 10, 2025

 

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