SECONDHAND SMOKE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (07-29-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     On the way back from tennis today I looked up and saw a beautiful pink moon hanging in the sky and I couldn't take my eyes off it. Usually if I see in the news that it's going to be a rare "blood-red harvest mariner's blue guacamole-with-cheese moon," I get all excited and put on my pajamas and go outside to see, and when I look up it's the same color it always is. But I've never seen a pink moon- I guess maybe it was just going through a phase. Well, it turns out that it wasn't the moon at all, it was the sun, filtered through the haze of an atmosphere filled with smoke from wildfires in Oregon, about 3,000 miles away.

     If this doesn't prove that we're all sitting here on one planet at the vulnerable mercy of what each other does, I don't know what will. In the grand scheme of things it's not that much different than me sitting next to the campfire toasting marshmallows, and then the smoke blows my way and I move, and it manages to find me wherever I go, and it's so frustrating that I have to take drastic measures and my wife comes out of the tent looking for me and asks me what I'm doing in the car with the windows rolled up holding a marshmallow on a stick? I don't even bother to say that there's a reasonable explanation for it.

     I can't think of anything scarier than wildfires, nor anyone braver than the people who fight them. What does it take in a person to sign up for that? A lot more than I have, and I've looked all over. Whoever it was that said, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" was amazing, because how did they know I started a fire there underneath my Jennair grill the other night? I know you're thinking that I was pretty brave, running towards the fire while some of my cats were running away from it, and fighting it with the plant mister. Within a matter of minutes I had the fire 30% contained.

     The Oregon fire, by the time I read more about it, had scorched an area half the size of Rhode Island, and thwarted the usual strategies of the professionals fighting it. I felt sorry for the people affected by it. I also felt a little sorry for Rhode Island, because every time something bad happens, Rhode Island gets dragged into it. Remember that huge pile of garbage floating around the Pacific Ocean? It was twice the size of Rhode Island, and remember that BP oil spill? It left a scummy ring the size of Rhode Island. When people think of Rhode Island, I hope they don't think of an oily garbage patch that is on fire. I met a guy who said he came from a place that had enough nuts in it to fill the state of Rhode Island. Turns out he was from Rhode Island.

     I read that the Oregon "Bootleg" fire is so large that it created a pyrocumulus cloud that generated its own lightning. This is unusual, and not nearly as helpful as creating a cloud that could make its own rain. Officials are trying to get scores of people to evacuate the area, but people who recall other, smaller wildfires in the past are reluctant to leave and want to "ride it out." Folks, my Mom's parallel parking is something you "ride out." A million-plus-acre wildfire is not. I know it seems far away at the moment, but I may just evacuate myself to be on the safe side.

     Did I ever tell you about the time I burnt down kitchen at my family's home in Chappaqua? The rest of the clan was on a nine-hour cruise up the Hudson, and just me and my father were there. I was cooking some French fries when my sister called from college, and me and my Dad were chatting away blissfully unaware that my French fries' patience was wearing thin. They burst into flames, which spread around the wood cabinetry of the kitchen in short order. The fire department came and quickly extinguished the flames, and my father elected to use the insurance money to send one of my sisters to college and repair the kitchen himself.

     This led to several revelations, 1.) You should keep at least three working fire extinguishers in your home and know how to use them, as we sort of did. 2.) French fries are not fire-retardant. 3.) A nine-hour cruise up the Hudson is WAY too long. 4.) If you're thinking of making French fries at your own home, you should know that it costs much more to send a kid to college today than it did in 1980.

     No, nothing about fire is funny, but trying to excavate a smile in a desolate area is what I do. It also gives me a chance to say thank you to those who keep us safe from people like me who underestimate the combustible nature of food. So, thank you.