Dont Mince Words

I remember walking home with smoke and ash following me.
I remember looking back every few paces to try to understand.
I remember communicating by IM because phone service was spotty.
I remember sitting in my Park Slope, Brooklyn backyard drunk, staring at the ash.
I remember the grounding silence and smiling at the fighter jets.
I remember coughing up black soot and sneezing for days.
I remember hugging people – all of us happy to be alive.
I remember the burning pile smell, which didn’t dissipate until Thanksgiving.
I remember serving food to disgusted pile workers.
I remember going to the fence to cry and pray for the victims.

The first time I heard the word cucamonga, I believe I was in third grade and it was a derogatory term of unknown origin or meaning. Nearly 31 years later, I heard the word again, except it was Rancho Cucamonga and the area was on fire.

On Friday, October 24th, my Venice skies became yellow, then dark and overcast. By 4 p.m., I could not see the stop light two blocks away. I discovered that the Santa Ana winds were blowing the smoke and ash 60 miles west to my Venice coastline. It kind of felt like 9/11 all over again, except I wasn’t drunk in Brooklyn watching burned memos land in my backyard.

Saturday was less overcast. I took a bike ride up to the beach and could barely see the end of the Venice Pier. Things weren’t much better a few miles north in Santa Monica. I could hear the kids yelling on the Ferris wheel, but they were a little fuzzy in the distance. There are usually dozens of sail boats in the bay on the weekend. The smoky visibility didn’t make for a good day of sailing.

A 9/11 flashback isn’t what I signed up for when I moved to California. The end result is the same: some asshole has ruined a good place for a lot of people.

Then again, we might all be saying the same thing after Arnold takes office. Who knows.