Singed

The big dinner in the backyard scheduled for last Friday was cancelled due to the wildfires. It was just to weird to do a big party while 1/5th of San Diego had been evacuated and fires still threatened communities. All of the San Diego Schools were closed for the week. People are calling to see if we have room to stay at our house while they are evacuated. We are calling others to offer our home. It is hard to get your mind around the statistics and the size of this thing. 560,000 people evacuated, more than 350,000 acres burned, 1,500 homes destroyed (not to mention business, commercial buildings & out buildings). We are literally talking walls of fire 50 feet high and up to 5 miles long as a front. So far only 9 deaths from a fire of this size. It is amazing!
No one is celebrating much of anything here. The fires literally put a damper on everything. Halloween celebrations in Hillcrest were downsized to very little on Oct 27th (Saturday). On the 28th the Chargers played the Texans at Qualcom to a nearly sold out crowd. San Diegans were willing to tell the country we support not only our team but also our city. So though it was smoky and subdued it was packed. Buckets were located at every gate for disaster relief and everyone was giving cash. We may be a little singed but we help each other in times of trouble. I am so proud of my city.

W and wildfires...

Horno, Coronado Hills, Rice Canyon, McCoy, Descanso, Poomacha, Witch Creek, and Harris. These are all names of fires in San Diego county this week that have destroyed over 350,000 acres, over 1,800 homes, more than 560,000 people evacuated (thats 1 out of 5 of the total population). Fires started last Saturday Oct 20th and as of today there has only been 10% containment. So far at least 9 are dead and hundreds of people hospitalized from smoke inhalation and respiratory problems.

The last time we had a fire season close to this bad was the Cedar Fires in 2003 promting president Bush to enact the "Healthy Forrest Act" which basically gave away our forrests to logging, which puts more sunlight on the ground and more moisture in the ground which grows more brush so we can have bigger wildfires. His wonderful new act that he claimed would eliminate wildfires has made his friends richer, and given us larger wildfires. Thank you for your lies Mr. President. Thanks W, for making our lives less safe on all fronts, foriegn and domestic.

Ten and counting…

It is ten days until the barbeque. Tables, chairs, tablecloths, glasses, napkins, and everything for the event except the food itself is on order. I estimate this barbeque will cost me between $1,200 and $1,400 dollars. I have been pretty anxious about this one since it is an outdoor event. My last planned outdoor event (a formal retirement dinner) was rained out. This time there is no bringing it indoors. The retirement dinner was for 20 people. When the rain came we moved the furniture out of the living room and dinning room and held it indoors. There is no way we can fit 30 people in the house for a sit down dinner. This event HAS TO HAPPEN OUTSIDE!
The weather channel is saying clear and sunny for the next nine days but on Barbeque Day, 40% chance of rain. I am now trying to figure out how to tent the entire back yard!!! What a pain!!!
OK, so instead of 30 people sitting down all at once it is now going to be more like an "eat when you feel like it. I will have two tables set up for six people each with the stone barbeque between both tables. There will be about a 3 time turnover on these tables to have 30 people eat. However, instead of building a huge tent over the backyard, I will be building a redwood roof over the side yard this weekend.

Off to war... again

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AJ and Little Jon are off to Iraq, again. They say it's for 7-9 months but I suspect it will be for longer, again. They are with the 3/5 Dark Horse Marines.

It makes me sick to hear that our President vetos healthcare for American children and will spend trillions on a war for oil. I didn't vote for that son of a bitch even when I lived in Texas.

I think of AJ and Little John often durring the day and worry about their well being as do many of us who have friends and family there.

Come home Safe!

Korean Bar-B-Que

It started out as a reunion weekend for Det-3 Vets. A few people John knows from past Marine Corps times were coming into town for a reunion at a Chargers football game. It went from a tailgate party to "why not make it a Bar-B-Que." Then it became it's own monster.

It couldn't be just some bar-b-que, it had to be better. Not just burgers and dogs, and not quite full steak dinner. It had to be beef and pork and sauces and rich tastes... what could fit that bill? Korean Bar-B-Que of course! Slices of Rib-Eye steak and pork marinated in sauces of kiwi and chili paste and honey! And of course there had to be a Bar-B-Que at each table! You cook your own food at your table as you talk, eat and drink with friends. That is all part of the charm. You don't get up and wander over to one central grill and fill a plate and find a place to eat and get back up for drinks and wander around. With Korean Bar-B-Que everyone sits together for the entire meal. There is no need to get up and wander around, everything and everyone you need is right there in front of you.

We have a very nice back yard. It has a tropical feel to it with ferns, banana trees, palm trees, bird of paradise and redwood. There are overhead hanging lamps, and garden lighting. It is the perfect place for a sit down meal. So all I need to get is the sit down part... Tables and chairs and tablecloths and the list goes on... Did I mention the list? Not only is the list of thing to get growing but so is the list of atendees!!! The count today is 22 confirmed, and growing. Have you ever had a dinner for 22 people?

We have the backyard deck stained and sealed, all I have to do is about 3 days of yard work, get tables and chairs for about 30 people, and prepare all the food. This will be a night to remember, I hope for all the right reasons. I'll let you know how it goes.

Not a writer...

I don't know how some people do it. Writers can put out a column every day. How do they find so much to talk about!? I have trouble even writing once a week. I can cook every day, but write on a topic every day... well, I don't have that much to say I guess.

Barstow, CA

If you have ever been to Barstow in August you know the meaning of HOT! Even if there is a breeze it feels like it is coming out of an oven. We stopped for lunch at one of John's favorite fast-food places Taco Bell. Out of the window I could see a woman pushing a wheelchair up the hill toward the Taco Bell Parking lot. I thought the person in the wheelchair was maybe a cancer victim. The arms and legs were very thin and the person was pale and small. I thought maybe they were coming from one of the offices around the restaurant and had maybe parked at the bell for convenience. Then the woman stopped the wheel chair at one of the trash cans and started searching through it for cans and plastic bottles, which she put into a bag on the back of the chair. She then wheeled the chair over to another trashcan and that is when they were close enough for me to make out the boy in the chair. He looked about ten or eleven years old with clean white shorts. The boy looked clean and well cared for. As she wheeled him to the next trash can the boy flailed his arms to try to block out the glare of the sun and the hot wind blowing on them. Here was a woman taking care of this child while trying to raise some money. She took him wherever she went. I realized that love of a mother for her child that no matter what the circumstances, she would be there for him. I was floored. It was like someone had gut-punched me, I nearly sobbed right there. Something in that scene brought out such basic feelings in me of admiration and respect for that type of love that it nearly made me sob on the spot. I went to the counter and bought $20 in gift certificates. I tried to make john go give them to her but he insisted I do it. Just as she was going to come in the back door of the Taco Bell I opened the door for her and handed her the coupons. The little boys face lit up as he lifted his hands over his head and gave a clap. She thanked me and went right to the counter. On the way back to my table I did loose it. I sat and ate as tears streamed down my face. They got their meal to go and she was able to get the boy a sticker he wanted. He just seemed happy. They left and she pushed him up the hill and out of sight but not out of mind. I keep thinking about the woman and the boy and the love an devotion I saw. I don't think I will ever forget it.

VACATIONS

I recently took a 5 day vacation and a 3 day mini vacation. I got back and I felt like I needed a vacation from my vacation! I didn't seem to rest at all. I was out late every night though I did get to sleep in most mornings except for the morning I drove to and back from the vacation spot. On top of that I always feel I should be doing something and not just sitting around wasting good vacation time.

When I was 16 and in college I would work nights all school year, I would work half of the summer except for about 4-6 weeks. I would then take off for those 4-6 weeks and camp out all throughout the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It would take me two weeks to just wind down enough to be able to relax and enjoy the vacation. Those memories are my favorite of vacations. I would make an early dinner and clean it up then go sit besides a meadow and watch meteor storms in the night sky and totally relax. I would mountain bike a trail or visit a wilderness hot spring and let the troubles of life fade away. A full day of flyfishing with a nap on a warm rock mid-day was not unusual.

Nowadays I am so busy trying to "vacation" and get the most out of my one week a year that I am exhausted by the end of it. Europeans and Australians go on Holiday for a month or two. That is what we need. Americans have become so "productive" we can't relax. I miss real vacations.

Dream

I had the strangest dream last night. I was swimming in a muddy river pretty far from the nearest road with some friends. It was a river that ran through brushy mesquite covered hills. I grabbed something underwater that I immediately recognized by feel.

I have picked up, put on, tied and re-tied my hiking boots millions of times over the years. Your boots are really the closest things to you when you hike for a living for years. Every step, every waking moment is spent in them and sometimes even when you sleep. There in my hand was the familiar feel of a leather hiking boot. I pulled on the boot and discovered that it was attached to a leg, in fact a body. I wasn't sure how much of a body because I couldn't see it in the muddy water. It was stuck in the mud so I tugged to free it from the silty bottom. I worked with the current to float it to the surface so I could see what I had found. I was yelling to my friend as to what I had found. The body broke the surface stronger than I though it would and it ended up splashing mud and blood all over him. He was not amused but my other friends laughed thinking it was a joke, then they saw the body floating. He was a white man about 30 years old with sandy colored shoulder length hair. He was fully clothed, levis, plaid shirt and melted nylon jacket. He looked like he had fallen onto a fire and his entire stomach area except for his spine was completely burned out. He hadn't been dead long, everything thing else on him was intact, not even his hair was burnt. My friend said we needed to carry the body out. We ended up putting his upper body in one large hefty trash back and his lower body in another. I carried the upper body and my brother carried the lower half for a little while. My brother has a bad back so I ended up carrying both bags. If you have ever carried a person over distance by yourself you know how hard it is. I was carrying him over some really tough boulder fields and up some pretty steep terrain. My legs burned. All I could think of was the family of this poor guy and how they deserved to have his body as intact as possible. It took us hours to get back to our van and I was exhausted by that time. We loaded the body into the van and took off to my station.

At the Forrest Service Headquarters I rolled up and met someone I worked with and said "I've recovered a body" to which he responded "oh no." I wasn't sure if he was sad I had recovered a body or about the paperwork involved to document it. We brought the body in and laid him out on a table in the garage bay. He looked so young with his shoulder length hair and blue eyes just looking out. I felt bad for his parents. When we went to move him into cold storage he blinked. I was startled and moved away, but I thought it was due to some involuntary muscle action, so I wasn't scared. When I moved in close to pick him up again his eyes suddenly turned to follow my every move. I got this very strange feeling that this was not some involuntary reaction but that he was really looking at me. I moved away and sideways but his eyes still followed mine. I moved in and picked him up and his eyes looked at me the entire time. As I put him into the walk-in cooler he kept looking into my eyes and would occasionally blink. I didn't know how to explain this so I just gently put him down and backed away. I was in the bay looking out a window at the surrounding forest when I heard one of the BLM girls say "he doesn't know, does he." I turned, "know what" I asked. That man you found killed several Apaches for sport. Some of the men in the tribe found him and killed him. Law enforcement has been looking for the body and the men who killed him since early this morning. I suddenly got the eerie feeling. I said "that's why the spirits picked me to find him, I'm Apache." I have been on body recovery many times before and have never felt weird about it. But right at that moment, I got the chills. This man, who had killed out of a hate burning inside his belly. The man who the Apache killed by burning the hate out of him. The man who watched me pick him up even after he was dead. It all seemed to fit together but why or how I didn't know.

American Dream

This week has been a rollercoaster emotionally. A job came up that I thought I might be qualified for and it paid really well. I mean REALLY WELL. If I got this job, in two years I could retire with the bills, cars, house upgrades and the house paid off. On the other hand I would be stationed with the Army in the field in Iraq. The threat of death or dismemberment was pretty real too. I did my first interview and though I had a lot of the requirements for the job, I was lacking in the area of hands on electronics maintenance. I really was pretty disappointed.

When I was growing up my Dad worked and my mom didn't. They bought a house with a 20 year low fixed rate mortgage and were able to pay it off, pay for whole family health insurance, have two cars, put money aside, and retire while they had a few years left. The California Native Americans that lived here in San Diego worked 2 hours a day to maintain their lifestyle. We work at least 4 times that just to maintain ours. I guess the new American Dream is both partners need to work at least full time, 50 weeks a year till they drop dead.

I started working when I was 11 years old. I have never had a real high-paying job even though I have a Bachelors degree and two Associates degrees. The only job that paid well was a construction job working in a radioactive, toxic environment. I have never been able to put money aside for retirement so I guess I will work till I leave this earth, and still not have the house paid off.

Today, compared to our parents or past generations, we work more, we live more crowdedly, we pay more for less health care, and our environment and natural resources are still diminishing. It just doesn't seem to me like the "Good Life" of that "American Dream" is progressing.