Fire

On a hot Saturday in August in the year 1967, I was with my dad at his new wife's house. This was never pleasant - anyone who’s had to share a parent soon after a divorce with that parent’s love-interest will attest to the oddness and uncomfortableness of it.

I don’t recall what was going on that afternoon, but I do recall other adults in the house and my father taking a phone call. He got off the phone and started to cry while quickly moving into the bathroom and shutting the door. The adults were whispering and talking low and us kids had no clue what was afoot.

Then, word starting spreading around the living room and hallway of the small ranch house. There was a huge fire. A three-alarm fire that was consuming my dad’s paper plant, the business he owned with his father and which had recently been expanding and doing quite well.

I remember going outside and looking to the northwest with my sister and soon to be step-brother. A huge plume of dark smoke rose on the horizon and seeing that smoke, immediately after hearing the bad news, brought a surreal doubleness to the experience. It was bearing witness to my father getting news of a life-altering tragedy and almost simultaneously seeing that accident progress. Unfortunately, he was way under-insured.

I had never seen my father cry before. That was weird for this son. Whether by training or DNA or television or whatever, guys didn’t cry except under extreme duress. I still rarely do. I knew when I saw him expose himself to this emotion, that something horrific must have occured and so it was that hot summer afternoon when I was thirteen years old.