RECYCLING BIRDS.

I'm an avid recycler and I tend to think of it as a human activity. But, hey, this smart bird proved me wrong.  Pretty clever. In years past when I was regularly quilting, I threw a handful of thread ends into my compost, and from there, birds decorated their nests with little blue and orange and red splotches of color among their nesting material. I guess we could call that a "decorator" nest.
I copped the picture from the internet and it had no accreditation for the photo.


I have favorite pictures I've taken over the years and this bird is one of them.   Click on it to enlarge it. I saw it on the side of the road in Palm Springs, California and stepped out, and quickly shot it and was stunned when I saw the results. I keep telling myself I'm going to have it developed and put on cards. But, first I have to find out what kind of bird it is. I think it is a dove or pigeon and I don't know the difference between a dove and a pigeon.  One of these days I'll take the time to look it up.

I'm still buried in paperwork, and revamping my office since getting my photo books, genealogy and other documents back since the fire.

TO STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES.

While I was in Oregon working on the house, Doug would ask me, "Mom, are you having any fun yet?  Taking a day off?"  The answer was always "NO".  In Calaveras County, our community is so lopsided and still in shock with 547 families burned out. Displaced people with their lives on hold, their future uncertain.  My friend, Nancy Stehura told me about a benefit dinner for fire victims at Prospector Brewing Co. on Main St. Murphys.  Nancy told me on the phone, "I know so many people who would love to have YOUR problems."  Touche'

So Jan and I decided to stop and smell the roses, put any personal issues aside and go have dinner.


We left her place and the sky above was a painting of puffy orange clouds.


At the Prospector Brewing Company, we told the bartender we had come for the benefit dinner. He said, "We don't serve dinner here. We aren't having a benefit dinner." The big question mark was on my forehead, how could this have happened two nights in a row? He pointed to a bin on the bar asking for lightly used clothing for fire victims. He handed us a beer and wine menu with a list of appetizers we could order. So, we ordered a drink and a bucket of unshelled  peanuts.


The band set up and got going. If the sign on the wall is correct, they are the Samba Breeze and there was a donation box set up to benefit Jules and Sean Koopman.  Hmm.


Not long after, Nancy arrived with about seven families who had burned out in the same neighborhood. The young girl and her mother, and the woman in blue, who I met later, Sue Koopman, burned out. Sue got up and made a speech from the band stand to support fire victims with donations. I couldn't hear. In fact, sitting next to each other, Jan and I shouted our conversation over the music. But we got the gist of things and put money in the box and many other patrons did the same.


My friend Nancy with her son. He is so tall, she fits under his arm. He burned out in Mountain Ranch and is bunking in with his mother in San Andreas, temporarily, part time. Someone, I think it was Nancy,  told me the ground was heated with the fire, the rains came and bulbs that normally bloom in the spring, are now poking shoots up through the ashes.


Jan having a conversation with Sue, about the level of devastation, and the difficulty of finding places to rent, especially if people have pets. Jan offered her acreage to place a trailer on and the offer was accepted. Sue knows someone who does massage and Jan has a table in her house.  I'm cogitating how I can do the same thing. The trouble for most of the victims, is their jobs and connections are on the far side of the county, or like Sue, in Amador County. Too far to drive everyday.


Sue and her partner, Danny, whose last name I didn't catch, have decided they are going to accept a Fema trailer and stay on the property and rebuild. Danny has a place in Hawaii, where they could move, but, they want to rebuild. It's the hard way, but we are so grateful that families are staying.  There is another benefit coming up for 5 firemen who lost their houses while they were fighting to save their neighbors.
Yes, it really is time to stop and smell the roses, be thankful, and find the green shoots coming up in our lives.

AN EVENING WITH "MOJO" O'KEEFE.

I planned to go to dinner at Outer Aisle in Murphys, an interesting organic store that serves all organic food in their small restaurant. Their chef was burned out and the proceeds from dinner last Thursday were donated to him and his family. I was told that every Thursday would be a different family. My neighbor and I got ready to go when my brother called and said he wanted to go with us because he knew the musician hired to playing there last night. He met a woman he only knew as "Mojo" at a Stop Wall  Street demonstration last year but didn't know she could sing

When we arrived, we were told that there was no benefit dinner for another family, it was just that one time for their chef. I was really disappointed, but we stayed.

But, when Meghan Joy O'Keefe got up to play, she told the patrons that all proceeds from her performance would be donated to the Fire Recovery. In the audience was a woman who had burned out and the money flowed into the basket. It made me a happy camper, but even better,  "Mojo" is an excellent singer. She has a high soprano range and a deep alto as well. She sparkles and the music reached the stars.

Since I haven't blogged much this past year, I forgot my camera and during a break, she gave me a copy of her River Reflections CD with a home-made cover. In side are the lyrics from six different songs she's written and plays about the Mokelumne River. Her dedication reads:  To the Mokelumne River and to everyone and everything she touches that our river may remain a living gift to the many generations to come.

Meghan regularly plays at the Rosebud Cafe in Jackson, Amador County along with her brother's band.
Thanks, Meghan for turning our dinner into a benefit for fire victims after all.

THE COSTS OF WAR.

We know that the costs of war are ugly, horrendous deaths, as in the recent American hit that caused “collateral damage”. We have witnessed too many soldiers coming home maimed, blind, without limbs. Thousands suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Technology for artificial limbs has gone beyond anything we could have imagined just 15 years ago. Those things are all “costs of war”.

 A friend of mine sent me a video where Democrat, Adam West is urging us not to trust or deal peaceably with Iran, and urging no peace agreement or nuclear disarmament with similar countries in the East.  Some Republicans are intent on eliminating Social Security and Planned Parenthood. They’ve cut food stamps for the poor.

Let us consider another cost of war. The Annual military spending: $653,110,000,000. That equates to$1.2 million per minute.
We are cutting school budgets, facing joblessness, hunger and the numbers of homeless people have increased?
Just one minute for peace, 1.2 millions dollars, could do a lot of good for our country.

To quote President Eisenhower:
Every gun made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
It was also Eisenhower who warned us of the Military Complex, that strives to thrive on war. His dire warnings have come true.

Our taxes shell out like this:  (From Obama’s budget request for 2015 in rounded numbers.)
55% Military
6.2% for Education
5.6% for Veterans Benefits
5.5% for Government
5.3 % for housing
4.9% for health
4.8% for labor
3.3% for International Affairs
3% % for Energy and Environment
2.5% for Science
2.3% for Transportation
1% for Food and Agriculture

Please take the time to urge Obama to redirect a fraction of that military budget to programs that benefit children, the elderly and all Americans. I know I don’t want 55% of my tax dollars spent on the war machine.
In the time it took you to read this, we’ve spent 1.2million dollars.

SHUCKS, WE ARE STILL QUAINT.

The local News comes in my mailbox and the front page feature story from Oct. 2nd, was: Jamestown sidewalk project dedication slated for Saturday. 

Whenever I have out-of-town guests, I like to take them to Jamestown because they have  wonderful antique stores, a great ice cream stand, and a couple good restaurants. And, during the summer tourist season, the townsfolk put on a parade and other events. I've been there many, many times and never gave the lack of complete sidewalks a second thought. Part boardwalk, part asphalt, part sidewalk, some areas on the edge of town are dusty ground in front of buildings that you can walk on, drive on-to,  or even park willy-nilly. When I saw the headline I realized how quaint we still are. A little bit of Maybury, USA.

Murphys used to be the same way. We once had an old dusty barn right in the middle of town with a blacksmith shop in it. And, horses shoving noses over the fence on the corner of Church St. and Main. Some vacant lots have been marvelously transformed. The businesses have taken great pains to clean things up, modernize a lot. But it isn't a big improvement. Now, businesses come and go. The wine people have taken over the town and there isn't much of interest anymore until a parade or event takes place. Well, I'm being harsh. The Park with a creek running through it, is still unique and attractive. I'm sure the business association would disagree with me.

The Jamestown Area Planning Committee connected Railtown with Main St. with a guided walk displaying medallions of all the movies filmed in Jamestown. And a new mural will be up soon. Very fashionable. It may be a huge success. 

I think I'm turning into a crabby old codger. I liked both towns better the way they were.

THE BUTTE FIRE RECOVERY HAS MANY HEROES.

I received the following letter on Facebook from Mona Baroody relating to my visit to the Mountain Ranch Recovery Center:
Dear Mary Matzek,
Thank you for your blog post in the SF Gate. As a resident of Calaveras County, Butte Fire evacuee (who is lucky enough to be unharmed), community advocate, and staunch corrector of misinformation, I need to provide you with some information.
First, FEMA and Red Cross DID NOT set up the Mountain Ranch Relief Center. The Relief Center was established by a grass roots effort of the community itself, in the midst of losing everything, THEY began to rescue themselves.

Second, many HAVE NOT found shelter, and FEMA HAS NOT provided any temporary shelter. In order to go back to their property, the burned out residents must first obtain clearance from the state that hazardous waste has been removed; to get that ball rolling requires a right of entry form filed with the county Environmental Health, then a wait for inspection, then a wait for help form contractors with proper licensure to actually do the clean up, then a wait for another inspection to provide clearance.
FEMA has been taking registration, and word has it that trailers for fire victims are arriving in Sacramento, but they are for all California Fires, not just Butte Fire or just Valley Fire. And again, until the property is cleared for habitation, they will not place residences.
I find it important to provide these facts because if people believe we are okay they will not help us keep pressure on the bureaucracy that slows our recovery.

Then, I received this letter from Jon Myatt on that same subject:

Hey Mary. As a resident of Amador County and a former emergency management PIO, let me apologize for the rough treatment you received from readers in response to your article. I have followed social media strings and read letters to the editors of both county newspapers and have to shake my head at some of the immature and uninformed responses to the actions of state and local emergency services agencies and the news reporters covering the incident. I have been a part of hundreds of disasters in my 40 plus years in the field and never have I seen so much uninformed criticism from victims and observers. That there is an underlying distrust and dislike of state and federal government in these counties is undeniable. The over reaction to your statement about FEMA and the Red Cross establishing recovery centers is an example. You were correct in that they DID set up centers there. However those that responded to you were hung up on the chronology of events and with who gets credit for responding immediately, which was not anything you were intending to document. It doesn’t matter who got there first except to people for who this is their first major disaster and feel the need to be recognized for it. So don’t take it personally. Many people here understand how this incident went down and how the state and its many partners responded to it. I enjoyed your article. And thank you for your support.

I thank you both for your letters. I was wrong when I said that people have fema trailers, they do not at this point. I met with a burned out friend on the day I took my stuff to the Recovery Center. She and her husband had been that morning to her property with a Fema rep to verify their burned place. Then they had paperwork to fill out and they were told the extent of Fema’s settlement for them.  In the news, it stipulates that Fema, with the victims permission, will, without cost, clean up the mess for any victim.  I’m guessing that means removing solid debris with a buldozer and hauling it away. 

Another friend gave a Fema rep at the center names of people to contact who she knew needed help with grants.  At the Recovery Center Office, I saw a group of people on the outside of  the park chain link fence. I asked about it and was told by the Office Manager at the Red Cross? or Fema Office? that they were a local volunteer group that had begun their own  recovery action.  So, pardon my confusion. I didn’t pointedly ask at the office, are you a Fema person? Or are you a Red Cross person?  All I knew is that people were rushing all over the place, working hard and directing traffic and directing me where to deposit my goods. And, Fema and the Red Cross were very much on task, feeding people and trying to keep things organized.  I expect the group I asked about was who Baroody mentioned,  set up to help themselves and each other. Isn’t that the way communities do it? They help each other. But without Fema and Red Cross, the effort would not have been as far reaching and thorough.

While there, I heard complaints about too many chiefs and not enough Indians. There is bureaucracy, and maybe even a waste of manpower in the way they work. But without them, the recovery effort would be stunted and much less powerful.

It seems to me, that in a disaster there are many heroes and we should concentrate on the positives and give feedback about the negatives to the agency involved to leverage change. I’m still trying to put my own house in order and I wish I could do more. Thank you both for your perspectives on fire recovery.

A DOORBELL STIRS MEMORIES.

The UPS guy came to my door yesterday and said, "That is the neatest doorbell I've ever seen!" I was slightly dumbfounded that anyone would even notice my doorbell.


What I like about it is that if you actually ring it, which most people don't, it really clangs loudly and I can hear it from anywhere in the house. I explained to him that it is a replica of a San Francisco cable car bell that signaled "all aboard" and impending stops. We bought it years ago in honor of my husband's father who worked the cable cars as a gripman when he was a young man. Of course, we heard all about it from the source, how when the street car is free wheeling down one of those steep hills, the gripman had to use his great strength to keep the giant clamp on the cable to make sure it didn't careen out of control, and release the cable when it approached it's stop, along with the applying the brake to keep it from jolting people off the car.  The cable moves continuously under the street and the car is attached and unattached as it makes it's route.

The guy was amazed at the mechanics of the cable cars and how it worked. I immediately went outside and cleaned it up a bit. It has a big stain from a wayward bird "dropping" by, and the door, has a few dings and has seen better days.  His son,  George, rode the street cars free to school, a San Francisco tradition for school children, but Gus would let him ride free on non-school days, something MY parents would never have done. Gus would smile and rub his hair and say "Com'on Chachi". He loved his only child with unabashed displays of affection, even as an adult.
Strange what memories a simple comment about a doorbell can engender. It left me with warm feelings all day as I thought back on those days.

BUTTE FIRE RECOVERY CENTER

Yesterday, I drove to Mountain Ranch to the park on Whiskey Slide Road where Fema and the Red Cross have set up a fire victim recovery center. Mountain Ranch Rd. was filled with traffic with 3 major stops for road crews re-establishing power lines to the area; removing dead debris from the road, and cutting dead roadside trees with potential to fall on the road.  Mountain Ranch Rd winds treacherously through the canyon without much shoulder space to stop.  At each forced stop, I took a picture from my window. It always baffles me that one tree still has green leaves while the next one is almost completely brown and scorched.

Somehow, when a fire goes through an area, I’m not alone in thinking that everything is burned down to the ground.  I’ve seen devastation like that. There is plenty of ash, and plenty of dead trees to come from my very limited view.

In the foreground on the left is a small blackened pine. Pine trees will die in a fire like this, but many of the oak trees, if given a chance, will survive. I don’t understand fire science and what makes this a hot spot where big trees burned and other areas are islands of green. Recovery is better when trees, are left standing, and even some dead ones left on the ground to hold water and gather clumps of washed dirt against them to aid in regrowth and insect activity.

At the park, I took this picture of mass, organized chaos when I first arrived. Then, it was a matter of slowly making my way around the park to drop off the carload of items I brought. Soap and shampoo one place. Black garbage bags another. Charcoal, boots, medications, paper plates, toilet paper, jackets, toys, pants, shirts, books, belts, scarves…
Before I returned to the site above the four pairs of boots I had left were already gone. One guy told me, “Oh, thank you. I have such trouble finding size 13.”
They aren’t accepting appliances or furniture until people have power and shelter to put it in.  Many have found places to stay. Some are camping on their property or are in Fema trailers. 545 houses burned.  State Farm has set up a Disaster Recovery trailer in San Andreas where people go to file their claims.
I worked hard; never getting a chance to take more pictures. I met a couple from Manteca and another from Modesto who came to help. The community of volunteers from Mountain Ranch was fantastic, practical and upbeat.  Then, late in the day, about 3:00, word came that rain was expected. Then it was a matter of getting tarps under all boxes of sorted clothing so wet couldn’t seep into the boxes. And covering them from the top with rolls of Visqueen plastic. I returned home late in the  day completely exhausted. Today, I’ll work on getting my own stuff back on shelves, that my kids removed for me. Sunday, my oldest son will bring back a van load of genealogy, family photos and records from his garage in Valley Springs.

BOUNCE FROM OREGON TO MURPHYS.

It has been long between blogs. I find when I'm busy, I'm really an activist at heart and am inspired to rant about the current incomprehensible political situation, which Jim dislikes.  I have not been traveling!  So I rant. Jim reminded me this morning it has been a year to the day (yesterday) since I left the motorhome and took up the business of building a new house and all that transpires both expected and unexpected.

While in Oregon, I got news of the awful Butte Fire from that distance, chagrined that my friend Deborah Mullen,  a co-worker at the Calaveras Enterprise, was burned out. A devastating experience.
Today, after clearing through pounds of mail, I gathered clothing, shoes, tables, chairs, jackets, and stuff you think people will need in the aftermath of a complete loss of everything of a normal household. Deborah posted a picture on FB  of herself and Husband Steve; "We have each other," she said. Always one to look on the bright side.

After connecting with several recovery, resource sights, it became very clear that the stuff I gathered was not what is needed right now. It is more on the order, of paper plates, paper towels, face soap, q-tips, wash cloths,  canned foods, powdered milk, peanut butter, fresh vegetables, flashlights, lanterns, batteries, ice chests, water carriers and so on. So, tomorrow, I'll assemble a different set of household goods,and make my way to Mountain Ranch, then Valley Springs where daughter-in-law Laurie is holding much of my important paperwork taken at my request from my house during the voluntary evacuation order. I'll start carrying my camera again, if I can find it.

My last day in Oregon, I went to a bridge repair meeting and met some neighbors from the private road we share, many of whom,  I'd never met previously.
I also invited 12 people to a wine and nibble about 4 p.m. Saturday,  before my expected leave on Sunday morning. I thought some of the neighbors might be curious about what my place looked like after watching the slow progress from the outside over eight months of building it.

Hmmm. Four people showed up, three from one family. All but  four answered with some enthusiasm, suggesting they'd be glad to come.
I thoroughly enjoyed those that came.  I'm not a novice at entertaining guests, but I've never been so royally stood up in my life, and it makes me chuckle that I've had that experience at this time in my life. If I were a young bride, I'd have been hurt. Not one person bothered to tell me they could not or would not come. I thought it was strange but those that came,  more than made up for those that did not.
It has been fun furnishing a new house, with nearly all second-hand items and attempting to keep it neat and not over clutter it with stuff as I am wont to do.  I'll eventually get pictures hung and curtains up and take photos; my goal to hopefully find this page a bit more often.

ciao-Mary

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES, TAKE NOTE.

FROM A FOOD WORKER IN ONE OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE CITIES IN THE U.S.-WASHINGTON D.C.

"Every day, I serve food to some of the most powerful people on earth: I’m a cook for the federal contractor that runs the US Senate cafeteria. I’m a single father and I only make $12 an hour; I had to take a second job at a grocery store to make ends meet. But even though I work seven days a week – putting in 70 hours between my two jobs – I can’t manage to pay the rent, buy school supplies for my kids or even put food on the table. I hate to admit it, but I have to use food stamps so that my kids don’t go to bed hungry.

"I'm tired of hearing platitudes from millionaires who are running for President.  I want the presidential hopefuls to know that I live in poverty. Many senators canvas the country giving speeches about creating “opportunity” for workers and helping our kids achieve the “American dream” – most don’t seem to notice or care that workers in their own building are struggling to survive.

"I’ve done everything that politicians say you need to do to get ahead and stay ahead: I work hard and play by the rules; I even graduated from college and worked as a substitute teacher for five years. But I got laid-off and I now I’m stuck trying to make ends meet with dead-end service jobs. American voters should ask themselves: if presidential candidates won’t help the workers who serve them every day, will they really help the millions of low-wage American workers who they don’t know or see? I’m a Bible-believing Christian, just like a lot of the candidates. Scripture says to “Love your neighbor” and “Do unto to others as you would have them do unto you”. It’s a shame too few candidates follow the guidance of the book in which they say they believe."

He and his coworkers' multinational employer had its contract renewed without being required to provide a decent living wage to its American workers.