Our sojourn and journey through the ups, downs, downs, ups and downs of living through and surviving a wildland forest fire has reached its natural conclusion.
As is more often than not with real life stories like this, now that we are past its critical stages of Der Fire it is nice to know that, subject to any future erratic acts by dearest Mother Nature, "the good guys" win. In this case, "the good guys" are not me and my fellow Rock Creek residents; rather, they are the 450+ professionals that took on this fire currently known as the Sawmill Gulch fire (but soon to assume a separate name of its own here by us locals--how about that for self proclamation of transmutation!) with a plan, a conviction and an unbending determination to meet, greet and retreat this ferocious oncoming force at the shores of Rock Creek. These are not the "shores of Tripoli" but I am sure going to engage the great wit and song writing ability of my close friend (who, daily throughout this saga, has religiously and thankfully emailed me his words of encouragement, prayers and good wishes) Bay Area lead singer for that wonderful rock band, "Stone Soup"--Fred "The Guitar" Johnson, that would be--to see if there just isn't some music to be written about a fire, an army of ground forces taking it on and, of course, the chorus needs to be about those wonderful men in their flying machines dancing with and within the smoking danger.
And, as for this, Der Blog, for those of you who have followed this saga, thanks for being here. Something inside me, early in this fire, said that there was a story here that needed to be told--actually, it turned out to be a series of stories, a fact unknown to me at the time--and, with our fishing groups earlier this summer, Der Blog at this site had been our form of internal communication (all of that ribaldry is on this site for your perusal as well), so that also became the forum for fire-related communication. Friends and clients needed to know what was going on here and, rather than fielding calls that would be inadequate and awkward at best, Der Blog was our way of doing so. As this fire began, we had just under 2,000 hits on Der Blog (a number that I was then astounded by), as friends and families of the fisherfolk followed along in our fun here on Rock Creek in late June and early July this year; I am stunned now that Der Blog has exceeded three times that amount and hope, for all of those who followed this odyssey with us, that I was in no manner either offensive or inappropriately poignant in my thoughts, comments or observations--for those that know me well, and that includes you that have read along with us, I am, deep inside, a fair and level-headed person; but, cross over what I think is a proper boundary to "the dark side", and then, inside, the emotions emit, at times with a burning frenzy.
Agreed, at some times I was as hot as the fire (I still can't believe, by the way, that Kathy and I were "uncondoned"--and, yes, we are going to have that sign made "Uncondoned: August 3-7, 2007" and proudly place it along our driveway for all to see [forever]--but I have already talked to my dear uncondoning friend, John Menson, and, earlier today we already having a good laugh about it all) and other time fraught with frustration; but, all in all, in reality, I was just a part of the landscape and a pawn swept up in the enormity of it all such that the reflections and observations expressed and photographed at any one time were a good mirrored image of the often chaos that was swirling about us at that particular time. Indeed, when some of the dust has settled, I, too, look forward to now looking back on all that has happened here in the last 10 days on normally docile Rock Creek, Montana; in fact, I have asked my office to print out a hard copy of Der Blog for my critical review--a review that will not take place for some time to come, I might add, for, even though all is well that ends well, the trauma of the journey is still with us all and I am not sure that I want to ride that emotional roller coaster again for awhile.
Bless each and every one of you, and, if you would, please do me one favor: Raise a glass to the wonderful men and women who fight this nation's fires--this was their story, not mine, and I for one am damn proud of them.
Best from Rock Creek, Montana!
Rock Creek Ron
p.s. As promised, attached is a photo just taken of "The Unshaven"
