Each Day Already is a Challenge

Wonderful Wednesday

Well, of course it is. Yes, it hurt to get out of bed this morning. And it will hurt to get back into bed tonight. And in between, there will be more hurting times. But I'm alive. And I am blessed with being able to sit at my computer and write a few words.

I can watch out the window and see things gradually changing. (I would wish for faster season changes, but...)

I have two cats that depend on me. And I think each one loves me, in its own way. Of course, being cats, they might not admit to that.

Yes indeedy, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Well, maybe not for someone.

As I was riding down the street to pick up my son from work, I noticed some folks in front of a store gathered around and pointing and shouting. From where I was, I couldn't tell if they were shouting at each other or about someone else. Then, a car sped up behind me, went around me, then decided to make a right turn from the left lane. Curious.

Farther down the road, there were four police cars racing in the direction of where I had been. They had lights flashing, but no sirens on. Real curious. I don't think I've ever seen that many cop cars in our area before. Except at parades and community good time events.

I picked up my son at Target, and on the way back, we noticed a bunch of flashing lights ahead. I told him what had happened on the way to get him. As we passed the police cars, we noticed that two more had joined in on the....chase? It must have been because it appeared that they had cut a car off. Very, very curious.

Then I realized why my mom always loved having a police scanner tuned to local police and fire stations. There are some flashing light events that you can pass and never know what happened. They just don't always make the newspaper or the nightly news. (And we only get the newspaper on the weekend anyway.)

Poor Mom. Some might think she had a fascination with police and fire calls and the tragedies of others. She loved listening to the police scanner.

When I was a kid (and later as a teen and young adult) my mom loved chasing fire trucks to see what was happening. As a kid, I thought it was fun. If the fire engines roared past our house, we would get on our roller skates or hop on our bikes to follow my mom to the fire. We never saw any major fires. Just backyard burning piles that got a bit out of control. Or kitchen fires that damaged just one room.

Then one day, when I was working and in college at nights, we heard sirens. By then, Mom had her scanner and when we heard where the fire was - near where we shopped for groceries - we hopped in the car to go and see what we could see. We parked the car, then walked to within a block of the fire, but on the opposite side of the street.

This fire was a bit more serious. It had spread to most of the stores in a strip mall. The roof caved in, and two fire fighters fell through. The gathered crowd cheered when they exited the building, knowing that they were safe. At the end of this strip mall was a gas station, and it was then that I realized this could really be a serious fire (and explosion) if the fire traveled a bit more. We left, and Mom was forced to listen on the scanner.

I'm not sure we did much fire gazing after that. I know I didn't.

How did my mom become so fascinated with fire? Actually, she feared fire. When we went to restaurants or movies, she always looked for all the exits. If there were not lots of exits, we would have to leave and go somewhere else.

You wonder why? When my mom was about three years old, the lumber yard right next to their house burned to the ground. My grandparents had six kids and they got them all outside. Then my grandfather and the other men in the neighborhood started using their garden hoses to squirt down their houses and roofs so they wouldn't catch fire.

My mom snuck back into the house and alternated between hiding under the bed and watching from the upstairs window. The fire scared that three year old child horribly. And, it's a wonder that her fears didn't get embedded into each of us.

Still, I was curious about what happened down the street a ways. But not curious enough to want to get a police/fire scanner.

Since that day that we feared that the gas station might catch fire, there have been two fires that I saw that I'll always remember.

The first was in Michigan. My first husband and I lived in a fancy mobile home park. He wanted new stuff and all the things that his parents had right off the bat in our marriage. And the easiest way to appear to have those things was to buy a new mobile home.

The first weekend that we were in our home, there was a fire. Just like folks often say, that mobile home was completely destroyed in less than three minutes. Not long after that, we had a bunch of fire and smoke detectors installed in our home. There weren't a bunch of the cheap ones that you can find today. No sireee. It cost us over $300 for those smoke and fire detectors. But we felt just a bit safer with them.

Then just a few years ago, when my son and I lived in Texas, the hardware store and lumber yard just a few blocks from our house burned down. I think I finally understood my mom's fear and fascination.

It was probably 10 pm, maybe a bit later, when we heard explosions, one after another. From inside, they sort of sounded like gun shots, but a bit stronger. I went out on the porch to see what I could see and discovered lots of neighbors rushing down the sidewalk. The stench of fire and smoke was in the air. I heard the crackling.

I was just as curious as my neighbors, so my son and I joined them all to go and see what we could see. What a mess. The hardware store had lots of paints and other chemicals in it, and that's what we heard exploding. The spray paint cans had actually flown across the street and embedded themselves in the sidewalk.

The mixture of burning chemicals soon had us all turning back to the safety of our homes. Even indoors one could smell the horrible smells.

Once the fire fighters had the hardware store part of the fire under control, they just stayed around to make sure that things didn't get out of hand. The lumber yard part of the fire just burned until there was no more fuel for the fire. How sad for the owners.

Strange, how the mind works. All of this came from just seeing a few cop cars with flashing lights.