Fire

I've been spending some time with the past lately.  TV has finally worn me down and I now find it unbearable much more often than I used to.  There's a line in a David Byrne song that says "Fighting fire with fire."  In context, I think he might be talking about quenching our imagination with the "fire" of  T.V.  That's not a good thing. 

As a result, I've gone off to Google images to review some of the images from my younger days that I haven't seen in a great many years and that I very much miss.

There are a few of these but I think the one that has drawn me in to the greatest extent is the Owens Valley section of U.S. 395.  During most of my growing up, this area was a gateway to other places, as well as being an end in itself. 

In terms of it's own destination, it was a way station.  Lone Pine, Independence and Bishop all saw us stop for food, ice cream or to spend the night.  In terms of a gateway, it was pure magic.  After the valley, which includes Mt Whitney on the Western side, you run into the Bristle Cone Pines, Mammoth Lakes and surrounding area, Tioga Pass, Bodie, Mono Lake and eventually the eastern slope of the Cascades.

We never stopped at what is probably the southernmost point in the valley.  This is a place called Little Lake.  There was an old hotel and restaurant there that burned down in 1998.  It had been there since the 30's and showed the signs of age.  It was always fascinating to drive by though because it had a little tower structure on top of it...for absolutely no discernible reason.  The owner couldn't get any of the fire departments in the area to respond to his call.  Gotta be a story there.

One night, we went to dinner at the north end of Bishop at the VFW.  The VFW was right off of 395, plainly visible from the road.  (I've never understood the fraternal/commercial dynamic of the VFW.)  My mom was married then and the VFW had band playing.  It was actually quite a nice restaurant.  I remember that my mom and her husband danced.  I was about 10 at that point and I remember thinking how wonderful everything seemed.

Years later after the divorce, we went through that area again and the saw that the VFW had burned.  The burned carcass of the building hung around a couple years until it was bulldozed.  It's now impossible to see where it was.  Fire's taken a few Owens Valley landmarks.

Fire's also an illuminating and cleansing thing.  I have an old picture for which I'm keeping an eye out for.  When I was a teenager, I saved my shekels and bought a 35mm SLR.  In experimenting with the camera while we were camped at Mammoth Lakes, I used a self timer and a timed exposure to take a picture of my mother and myself staring into a camp fire.  (I'd have included it here if I could find the thing.)  In the picture, the fire is quite bright and we appear as colored shadows.

Fire can be either destructive, purifying or both.    Fire takes much of our past but that's a good thing.  If our past is bad, it's great that it's in the past and done.  If our past is good, it's a springboard to what's beyond.  Ultimately, it's who we're riding with through time that determines whether the effect of the fire on us is destructive or beautiful.  The short version of this is that if we let Christ drive and throw a bunch of other people in the car that think he's going to take us someplace amazing, then the fires of time and circumstance destroy our broken pasts are wonderful. 

These are the fires that can light our nights, defining us in their reflection and warming us.  The past is gone.  Camp fires and sweeping forests streaming down off high mountains wait for us up ahead.