By Kelly Mahan Jaramillo, Sunday, 6th Sept. 2009
This last week has been a nail biting heartbreaker. As my handful of readers know, I was born in Los Angeles, Ca. Even though I left over a year ago, and Pittsburgh is my newly adopted city, I will always have a soft spot for Los Angeles, the Los Angeles of my youth, the Los Angeles then that is buried under the Los Angeles now, which is hurtling down the tubes financially and bursting into flames physically.
It hurts to watch the fire coverage. I remember there used to be a “fire season’, it was mid-September through October. Now, it is fire season all year. It is hot, all year. The rainy season is no longer, you feel blessed to get two days of rain in a row. At any point, Los Angeles can suddenly look like this.
The Los Angeles 2009 "station" fire. Downtown Los Angeles, with the fire north behind it.
I still have friends that live in Los Angeles, and a few of them were a little too close to the fire for comfort – Stephen and Donna Miller, Martha and Jim Blackburn, and old friends with whom I have lost touch – I have been sweating, following the fire coverage, my heart literally in my throat.
I may be on no terms with my mother, but I am glad she moved out of California. I hope she has stayed with Steve, her boyfriend, as he really loves her. I hope they are together and out of the small town they lived, Julian, California, which was nearly burned to the ground in the fire back in 2003.
A firefighter from Novato, Ca, was battling the fire a mere 1/4 mile from her house when he was killed. My mother was the editor of a small publication, and I gathered all of the information about the firefighters who saved her home, and the one that died, asking her to write about it in her publication, “The Messenger”. She said she would, but she did not. Every time I watch California in flames, I think about the man who died saving my mothers house. I feel embarrassed and ashamed that she did not memorialize him in her publication, especially since it was a magazine concerning all things of the spirit.
His name was Steve Rucker, he was 38 years old, married, with two children.
Steve Rucker, 38, of Novato, California
However, San Diego County had the good grace to honor him by renaming the road that went into her town. She had to see his name every time she left the house, for five years until she moved.
The Road outside Julian, California
This is one of the reasons I just do not understand her. She chose to write about her feelings after the fire, yet her feelings did not include the man who saved her house. This is where it feels as if we are not related. When one has a platform, no matter how small, shouldn’t it be utilized in the manner intended? Or Perhaps I judge her too harshly, as she was an only child, and the world seems to exist only from her perspective. She acts as if she is interested in someone else’s perspective, but it doesn’t really seem that way. I would say that she wasted my time in finding out Steve Rucker’s name and information, but she did not. I live with the knowledge of what he did for her, the sacrifice of his life, the sacrifice his family and fellow firefighters gave to save a small town and one of the very first houses leading into that town – hers. I think of him every time there is a fire in California. I think of him sometimes for no reason at all.
Now there are two more firefighters who are dead, battling this 2009 ‘Station’ fire.
Ted Hall and Arnie Quinones.
Deceased Firefighters Ted Hall and Arnie Quinones, Sept. 2009
The Firefighters have a fund if you would like to help the families of these two men, just click on their names, above.
Los Angeles holds memories for me, and to watch those memories go up in smoke is painful, but not nearly as painful as watching the people who are losing everything, people I do not know, watching the wild animals fleeing, the domestic animals lost, my heart is very heavy. Sometimes I feel as though I abandoned California, and now I am watching it die. 
A small part of me dies along with every fire, every foreclosure. California was a great state, Los Angeles was a wonderful city to grow up in. I hope someday it will get back some of its former dignity and glory. It makes me angry to read what people write about California and Los Angeles – so many people flocked out to L.A., to partake of the goods, and now that it has been raped and pillaged, they sneer and make jokes.
I may never want to go back, but I hope that California comes back to life someday, and I hope I live long enough to see it.
Please, if you can, try to donate to any firefighters fund you can find. These men and women are fighting for your home, your life. That’s just what they do. We can all spare a few bucks for their families, can’t we?
