Seven weeks as an actual Cary Valley National Park ranger and Birdie McLaren was still excited to be wearing the time-honored “green and gray” uniform, although today she wore firefighter clothing, protective yellow and green Nomex. She adjusted her tiny frame atop the all-terrain vehicle, pulling a load of boxed food and bottled water up an old Army-built access trail.
I became a Reedleyite in 1947 and I was in for a culture shock the first time I went out in Aunt Geneva’s backyard to play with the neighborhood kids. The countries represented included Mexico, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Italy, Portugal, Armenia, Lebanon, Japan, and Korea, to name a few! John Steinbeck introduced California to the new immigrants called “Okies” of which I was one, wearing high top shoes and overalls. But the games we played were all the same: kick the can, statue, or mother may I. My first friend was a Portuguese kid named Danny Enos, who lived down the street. We would usually meet at Ayubes Market for a coke or ice cream.
In 1849, news of the California gold rush reaches the Portuguese Azores, original homeland of Manuel and Mary Enos. It isn’t long before the couple is on board a clipper ship, rounding the “Horn” and heading to San Francisco. The Enos’ will settle in the gold fields of Trinity County, where they raise a family of nine.
How many times have we heard the tragic news of a terrible forest fire sweeping through a forest, taking homes and sometimes even lives with it? It is always such sad news, and many times the fire is started by a little spark: somebody dropped a cigarette without putting it out, or somebody didn't put out their campfire.
