2020 Tuesday — Wildfire

The is the view from the Norco Fire Station located on Corydon Street. This is looking west toward Chino Hills; hills which are now all charred from the flames.

We woke at 4:00 a.m. Monday to heavy winds from the east. Then it was afternoon when we viewed the smoke and knew fire was somewhere in our vicinity.

The fire burned all day today as the winds continued while decreasing. By late afternoon, the wind from the east had stopped and the usual breeze from the Pacific Ocean, some 35 miles west of us, was blowing mildly toward the east and bringing thick smoke from the fire into our city.

We went out late in the afternoon to walk the pups and knew we needed to get across town to walk in a neighborhood park with a little less smoke.

California is burning and has been for months. Rain would be a welcomed weather condition.

Good night from SoCal,
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol
and Chloe & Mitzi too

P.S. On another note, this is my dad’s 94th birthday. He died in December 1992 at the age of 66. Below are some words I’ve written about Dad in the past and today dusted them off, mentioned the Dodgers who have just won the World Series, and placed them here:

Today, October 27, is my dad's birthday. He was born in Los Angeles so I know he would have been a Dodger fan. But this is not about baseball, but a birthday.
Much of the fabric of my life is woven from the threads of Dad's life. As I have matured, I have learned to appreciate what I have gained from Dad. I know my love of writing came from him. I'm sure that a good portion of my tenacity and my ability to dream came from him. My desire to stay married comes, I am sure, from the reality that he didn’t stay married.
It's hard to believe that Dad would be 94 today. I've thought about him throughout this day and honestly the thought that keeps coming to mind is that I know so little about his youth. I don't know exactly where he grew-up. I think in the city of Santa Barbara, but I don't know for sure. I think he finished high school, but I don't know where he went to high school. I don't remember my dad ever talking about his youth.
I know Dad was an army paratrooper during WWII, but he never went overseas. He met my mom when he was stationed in Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. My mom was Dad's first wife. When he and mom separated, I was too young to remember him ever living in our home. After that Dad married many many times. Each one ended in divorce. My older sister and I were his only children.
Dad spent the last couple months of his life in the Veteran's Hospital in Los Angeles. He basically drank himself to death. The summer before he died, he was laid-off from his engineering job and he couldn't find work. I think he drank all summer until he was sick and the medical professionals determined that he had leukemia.
Dad spent the entire final autumn of his life in the hospital. It was there that he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. The last time I was in Dad's hospital room before he died, we gathered his things, what little was there . . . a lovely trench coat that we gave to our son, a package of white knit socks that a volunteer group distributed to patients, a Hershey chocolate bar, and a quarter (25 cents). Mr. Fun kidded me at the time that I was looking at my inheritance; he was right. It was an extremely sad moment for me. Dad was comatose. I knew he only had hours to live. He would say that he died successful because he didn't leave a penny. He'd spent it all. He would have no regrets; he never did.
My dad died at the end of 1992 when he was only 66. He was buried in the Veteran's National Cemetery in Riverside, which provides free graves to veterans, so it seems he even had that planned.
Today, on his birthday, I am wondering about Dad and wishing I'd known his history better. The 23 years that he was alive before I was born have lots of blank pages for me. I’m honored that he was my dad, and I believe he did the best that he knew how to do. He knew how to work hard and to make a lot of money; he also knew how to spend it. He knew how to provide for his children. He always paid child support and never neglected visiting his two girls. But he didn’t know how to “family” and never surrounded himself with people that did. I love him anyway and wish I knew him better. Happy Birthday Dad!