Christmas in Paradise: Visiting the Camp Fire six weeks later
"But why are they calling this the Camp fire?" I asked an old-timer selling souvenir T-shirts in Chico yesterday.
"Because it started on Camp Creek..." Oh. Of course. "Plus that will
be $20 for the T-shirt." I plan to take it home and tack it
to the door of my disorganized and overstuffed closet -- to remind me
that material possessions don't really mean all that much if your whole
freaking life is about to be snuffed out.
Here in Paradise, it's kind of bizarre. All along the main street, for
over two miles, the same pattern is repeated block after block. Two or
three buildings will be standing untouched and yet two or three
buildings next to them will be totally destroyed. The Walgreens, the Big O Tires and the
CVS came through with hardly a scratch -- while the McDonalds and the Jack in the Box are totally wiped out.
I talked to one woman who had lived in Paradise all of her life and had
just returned to the sad ruins of her home. She told me about her
own personal experience with the fire. "We were driving through a wall
of flames and the car directly behind us simply exploded. We watched in
horror." But then it got even worse -- she and her husband had to get out
of their car and try to outrun the flames. "We stopped to help a group
of older men and women standing in front of their burning convalescent
home. We flagged down a school bus to help get them to safety -- but it
was already too late and once again we watched in horror as even the
bus caught fire. We ran for our lives." Geez Louise.
"As you can see, we finally made it out alive -- but just barely. A
truck came by and picked us up." She showed me a video on her phone but
all I could see was fire, a solid wall of fire. "We were the lucky
ones. We lost everything. But we are still alive." I cried. She
cried. I will never again worry about having too much stuff ever
again. At least I too am alive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7107ELQvY
What was I doing up in Paradise? I went up there to volunteer to help
out with the extensive and excellent refugee-relocation program. But
that's a whole other story, one which I am now still absorbing and am
still in shock about too. Maybe I'll write about it after Christmas.
But, hey, at least I still had a Christmas tree, a roast turkey and some
eggnog to come home to.
PS:
I am a witness to the recent horror that has befallen the little
town of Paradise. I myself was horrified. And all of America was
horrified too. And it's even worse when you actually see it up close
with your own eyes.
However. I have also witnessed this very same type of horror -- of a
city mercilessly destroyed -- in other places as well. Places in Iraq, Syria,
Palestine, Afghanistan and Lebanon -- and even in Guatemala, Vietnam,
Juarez, North Korea, Honduras, South Dakota and Ukraine. And yet most
Americans don't seem to mind about that. https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/endless-war-has-been-normalized-and-everyone-is-crazy-9a664c793122
When these horrors are caused by wildfires or other natural stuff here at home,
Americans react in horror, right? But when similar horrors are caused
by American cluster bombs, American armies and/or America's proxy death
squads, mercenaries and al Qaeda "rebels"? Nobody in America seems to
mind. https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/12/09/the-largest-conspiracy-theory-peddlers-are-msm-and-the-us-state-department/
And yet, just like the American victims of the Paradise fire never
asked for these horrors, the tragic victims of America's "wars" never
asked the United States and its allies to come clean out their closets
either.
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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world. And while you're at it, please buy my books. https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM
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