It is Thursday morning here in Smokeyville, as, with each passing day, as the eastern front (i.e., Rock Creek) of the Sawmill Gulch fire expands, so does the cauldron from which smoke spews, 24/7. Once a scale of 3.8 on the RCR Smoke-o-meter, the density of the smoke has risen to a 5.5 and, last evening, was as high as a 7.2--a precise scale determined by the amount of irritation in Kathy's right eye (it has been nice to know that I have not been the cause of that of recent, much that is anyway!).
I use the departing verb tense in the comment above because today is my last day here on the fire lines--tomorrow morning Tyler and I return to the Bay Area using our Delta Air Line tickets that have now been twice extended (we were originally scheduled to return on July 31st--strategically planned to be the day before the Testicle Festival [where there was only one double stabbing and one near beating death--what a torrid contrast between us on the fire lines and them on the bar lines just ten miles apart]). In setting the stage for my exit left, I thought you might like to see a picture of that portion my Montana office from which Der Blog has emanated (so I have asked Dave Stallard our trusty Blogmaster to post one) and through the window you can see that the horizon mountains are barely visible through the haze and smoke that now constantly fills Rock Creek Valley.
In the foreground is a wonderful statue that I found a few years ago in one of my favorite Carmel galleries--it is a donkey kicking its heels and was purchased as much for its attitude as its sculptor-given title "Kicking Ass"; off to the left is another piece purchased from the same gallery that I have named "My Grandkids Fishing". In a way these two wonderful bronzes describe the book ends of my life--"kicking ..." in the legal portion of my life out of the Bay Area and sharing the wonders of nature in this, a most special place, in the other. I wouldn't trade either--they are the bookends of my life, with volume after volume filling their breach each year--this year with a whole tome [this Blog] on a fire that we never expected but always feared.
Awaking this last full day for me on the fire lines, I began to reflect that, by its totally consumptive nature, this fire raging outside yet not so far away has become a part of me. It has filled by every mental and physical pore; it has been all demanding, all restricting (I felt like I was getting out of jail as I left this immediate area last evening for the first time in nearly a week), and all exhausting. The note I wrote last night about the certainty of the uncertainty of it all is an accurate one. Just when you think things are getting under control and you can relax a bit, whaaam, either a "weather event", falling tree, exploding hillside, low flying helicopter overhead or the arrival of another (marvelous) crew on the yard takes that fleeting moment of peace and dashes it against the rocks, just as an angry wave will do to floating jetsam.
I will miss Der Fire, in many ways, however, as it has become a new, angry, demanding, fickle friend--one who pounded on our doorstep until we let it in, one who, like a painful mother in law, then demand every moment of our attention every portion of the day, and one who yet needs to let you know that he/she/it is there and will be there until the same decides (on its own and in its own time) to take leave. Friends like that are best left with the masochists, however, so taking my leave tomorrow morning will not be a fire-related tearful event--but, still, I will be leaving something behind.
My new friend gave me a chance to take another look both inside me and into those around me. I learned that I married the perfect partner in Kathy; I learned to even be more proud of son Tyler, who paced and out-paced me every minute of the several crunch times; I learned who I could trust, tease, respect and not; I learned a ton about firefighting and the firefighter; I learned to respect even more this wonderful state of Montana and its populous; I learned to respect the awesome power of Mother Nature and two of her tools--weather and fire; I learned to use Der Blog as an effective method of "putting pen to paper [air?!?]" and openly sharing my daily life, visualizations, fears, photography and frustrations; and I learned to re-respect my fellow man and woman as being the inherently good folk that we all are when all the chips are on the table and all the nonsense is set aside.
I learned a lot.
RCR
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