Have you ever been a first responder?...the many fires burning where I live have me thinking about the disaster response teams I have worked with over the years...and the people...victims and disaster workers alike...who have lost their lives...the people whose homes...possessions...have vanished forever...
I remember in particular the Loma Prieta earthquake...it was my first time responding to such a large-scale disaster...I was processing an application for a Small Business Administration loan...and had forgotten to get the wife's signature...
I knew the family lived on a particularly devastated street...and their business was a total loss...rather than ask them to return to sign a form, I drove to them...their stunning home...on a ridge in the mountains above Santa Cruz...appeared at first glance to have been spared any damage...
Then the owner opened the front door...and I could see the that back half of the home had fallen down the mountainside...the handiwork of a custom builder...all of whose properties on that particular lane...about every other house...had sustained considerably more damage than any other builders'...
Later that week, the house was "red-tagged" by the county...meaning the owners would not be allowed to remain there...or return there...rebuilding would not be an option...the people who lived there had lost everything except their lives...including their home...their livelihood...even the ground on which their lives had been built...
So it seems quite odd in retrospect...odd that I would have acquired a keepsake...while working as a first responder...
It was following the Northridge Earthquake disaster...coinciding with Smokey Bear's 50th anniversary as the mascot for the United States Forest Service...a fireman gave it to me...I had forgotten all about it until today...when I dug deep into my only keepsake box and there it was...its message as important now as it was then...
Baseball commemorating Smokey Bear's 50th anniversary...