10/25/17 My wife Colleen and I came back home from my Parkinson’s disease doctor appointment at the S.F. VA Hospital by going north to Santa Rosa, trying to avoid the worst of rush hour traffic. From Santa Rosa we drove over the ridge to the Napa Valley. Our GPS assured us the road was open after the fire. What we did not know there was a 6pm curfew to keep looters away and to save any local victims from dangers after dark. We arrived at 6:15 and begged the National Guardsmen to save us an extra two hour trip. They relented and we scooted over the pass, driving through neighborhoods of total destruction. What we saw was something out of a war zone, just charcoal and fireplaces. We had seen pictures in the paper and video on TV, but encountering these gates of hell in person was overwhelming. So many left homeless, and so much lost.
We were the only car on the curvy mountain-pass road borerding the hit and miss decimation. One ridge was burned while the trees of another stood with leaves or needles of green; a house here, charcoal there.
As we swichbacked down to the little damaged upper Napa Valley, I gave another silent thank you to the firefighters.
SFGate: Carlos Avila Gonzalez (The Chronicle)Nathaniel Robert Winters
Author Nathaniel "Bob" Winters observes details of the battle to put out October's fires.
10/16/17 Yesterday my wife and I drove up the Napa Valley headed back to St Helena after a five- day evacuation from smoke and fire. On arriving at Oakville, we discovered the fire was burning over the ridge-tops and raging down the mountains towards our home.
fireaviation.com
Through our windshield, we could see two choppers filling up water into huge buckets then dumping it onto the flames. Two large fixed wing aircraft were also attacking with retardant.
fireaviation.com
The battle goes on. The winds have calmed down and the "powers that be" believe we are safe. I hope they are right.
This morning I masked up and took Rue for a walk, watching the two choppers continue the fight. I flashed back to other another battle line in Nam.
thoughtco.com
But luckier than in Nam, the weather men are forecasting rain Thursday, the first winter wet-down after our usual summer drought.
It appears some prayers are about to be answered. "They" say there are no atheists in foxholes.... This "not quite kosher" guy is not so sure about prayer, but it couldn’t hurt!
I love TV. I always have. Since the early 1950s when Dad wanted to sleep-in on Saturday morning and I learned to turn on our very modern black and white set topped with rabbit ears, I've been following favorite shows. Now we have On-Demand and Netflix so we can sleep-in too, but back in the 50s millions of us spent Saturday morning glued to the tube.
This week join guest blogger, Nathaniel Robert Winters, in a flash memoir of his Saturday morning Westerns. Look for his latest book Not Quite Kosher—not quite a memoir but a unique blend of non-fictional prose, poetry and even fiction that parallels reality. Nathaniel is the author of 10 books and can be found on Amazon.com.
Saturday Morning Heroes
When I was an eight-year-old, my heroes appeared like clockwork every Saturday morning on the black and white, rabbit eared way-back machine. My grandfather and I occupied ourselves for three hours of Western justice: lessons as important as any at school, church or temple.
Grandpa Abe, a refugee of Eastern injustice, found sanctuary in the old West. We started with the Cisco Kid—yes there was a Mexican hero on 50’s TV, but no black heroes. My elementary age mind did not deal in gray-area moral issues yet. Good and evil was black and white. The hero always won, the bad guy was captured or shot without bleeding and the girl was always saved, all in a half hour show complete with Tony the Tiger Frosted Flakes commercials.
Next came the Lone Ranger with his good Indian partner Tonto. Even Indians could be good guys on Saturday mornings. Long before the Beatles, my favorite tune was The William Tell Overture that ended with “High ho Silver, away.”
Rin Tin Tin followed the Lone Ranger and marked the start of my love affair with dogs. Before I ever had a dog, the TV German Shepard, who was a member of the Western U.S. Army, saved the day and showed me the value of having a canine best friend.
We moved into the twentieth century with Roy Rogers, who could drive a jeep as well as ride his horse while singing with his wife Dale Evans. He could play a guitar and a six shooter.
The morning ended with a modern day western pilot, Sky King, with his lovely, often imperiled, niece Penny. No worries, she would get into trouble but never was she really in jeopardy. Remember, on Saturday morning in the late 50’s all the girls were saved, all the bad guys went to jail and all my heroes would ride off into the Western sunset.
I so enjoyed those idyllic black and white shows while eating Frosted Flakes with my dad's Ellis Island immigrant father. His reality would come soon enough, taking my genuine hero grandfather to his final sunset.
