Robb Lucy - Fire!

CONCEPT TO WOW PEOPLE

Remember – I’m going to write ‘legacy stories’, stories that occurred in my life… from early age to now. And at the end of each I’m going to describe how this story affected me… and added to my growth/formation. The teaching for the gazillions of people who read this book: write your own stories as your descendants will want to know who you are and where THEY came from. Your blood flows in them.

SO... if I have a bunch of stories written in the same form (facts, feeling) but stories of ONE person, would you find that interesting? What does it need to gather the gazillions?

"Stories have to be told, or they die.

And when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.”

Sue Monk Kidd -‘The secret life of bees”

Here’s another of my stories.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fire.

It was Sunday morning in the early spring. There were bits of snow about, including shards of clear and broken ice in the middle of the street we lived on. The sky was grey, the leaves not ready or brave enough to tempt the cool air.

But the red winged blackbirds were happily eating the small crab apples on the tree in the front yard. I watched them from the dining room window. Someone, I don’t know who, said they get ‘drunk’ on these apples, apples that had been on the tree since last June. At almost four years old, (it’s March, and my birthday is in April), I wasn’t quite sure what ‘drunk’ meant, but it didn’t matter. I loved watching the birds bounce from branch to branch, fall to the ground to pick up the easy meals, and then fly back into the branches for a good time wrestling match and competition with their bird relatives.

I heard we were a Catholic family. I didn’t quite know what that meant, but it was the reason my mother and two older sisters weren’t at home. They had gone to church, to ‘first Friday mass’ they called it. Dad was still in bed. I was told he would get home late from an out-of-town business trip. I could hear him snoring in mom and dad’s bedroom, so I pulled their door closed so Dad wouldn’t wake up my nearly one-year-old twin sisters upstairs, and Mona, a young lady in her early 20’s who had been with our family for a few weeks helping Mom with a big house and five kids. My two older sisters (the ones at church) shared a big bedroom upstairs, and my younger twin sisters shared another room. I think Mona (who we laughingly called our ‘maid’ for the few months she was with us) had a bed in the twins’ room, as the twins still slept in their own separate cribs. My bedroom was upstairs too, and I guess I had my own room because I was the only boy in the family.

Three adults and five kids in a house Mom and Dad bought about eight years earlier, just after the war (WWII). It was a big house in a quiet and safe neighbourhood about half a block from the river where, on Saturdays, I’d bring home a fish (trout) for anyone who wanted it.

On this Sunday morning the house was very quiet. I watched the birds from the big window in the dining room, a room where the big table and credenza would sit our family of seven, and three or four guests for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

The living room was quite formal, and for years we were told to stay out, as our parents wanted to keep it ‘neat and clean’ when they had fiends over. There was a large painting of a mountain over the real fireplace, and a ‘hi-fi’ that we could play 78 or 33rpm records. I think we had about five records.

The kitchen was standard, except for the booth with a six-foot red bench on both sides that would sit our family of seven. Three on each side, Mom at the end. And this is the only room that held our only AM radio. Mom was a bit of a news junkie.

And on this quiet Sunday morning I walked into my favourite room, the den.

Chloe the parakeet welcomed me with a short chirp. There was a small gas fireplace, room was warm with grass cloth wallpaper, a Naugahyde couch, a small table, books and games we’d play.

It was in this room on that Friday morning that I saw my family’s, life change.

Mom and Dad would smoke in the den. Real cigarettes, Dad non-filter, Mom filter. We kids thought nothing of the acrid smoke in the room. We knew nothing of smoking and cancer in the mid 1950’s. I’m not sure how Dad lit his ‘smokes’, but Mom lit hers with a small, gold coloured lighter. And on this quiet Friday morning, it was sitting on the table beside the couch.

I was curious about fire, and how fire comes out of this tiny, metal container. I held it in my hand. It was cold, and I couldn’t figure out how it worked. I pushed and pushed and pushed… and then Ah! Fire!

I dropped the lighter as I had burned my left thumb. ‘That’s how it works’ I thought. Eyeing last night’s news paper, I wondered if Mom’s lighter could light the news paper?

I pushed the lighter again, brought it over to the paper and touched its corner with the lighter’s flame. The paper lit immediately so I dropped on the floor. I was amazed how quickly the burning paper’s flame got bigger. ‘Maybe I should stop the burning?’ I thought.

I had slippers on and kicked the burning paper behind the couch where the long bamboo curtains were hung. The curtains burst into flame and the heat felt like it was burning my face. What I didn’t know was that the den was recently painted with a rubber base paint which became an inferno immediately.

I ran into Dad’s bedroom and gave him a small shake, saying “Daddy, here’s a little fire in the den…”

About this time Mom and my two sisters were leaving the church. They would soon see unimagined horror.

Dad was asleep, but with one sniff he was on his feet and at the bottom of the stairs.

“Mona, get down here with the kids… now!”

Mona panicked. “I can’t. I’m afraid” she yelled from the top of the stairs.

I was still beside Dad and he screamed at me “Out the front door! Now! GO!”

The fire was now in the dining room. The smoke was thick, my eyes were burning. I obey Dad and get to the outdoor porch crying like a baby. “I don’t want to die.”

Mom and my two sisters pull over on 4^th street to let the firetrucks go by. Then the trucks turn into our neighbourhood.

“Mom, look!” said the girls. “The fire’s close to our house!”

I was on the street by now, out of the house. I’m afraid and crying. I can see fire. Then I see Dad come out of the front door. He has a baby in each arm, and a grip on Mona.

Mom turned on to our street and saw a house burning. It was ours.

“Oh my God” she whispered, ready to scream.

RIP Chloe