L.A. Times, Tassajara, Big Sur fires...

[photo from L.A. Times]

Retired English teacher, I pride myself on an ability to recognize an author's style... Frost, Eliot, Pound... Hemingway, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth... yeah, I'm of another generation. So tonight, reading L.A. Times for news of the Tassajara, Big Sur fires... I'm startled to recognize the voice of a particular reporter, the author of a feature titled "Tempest in the Treetops," L.A. Times, Tues., Sept. 17, 2002. The subtitle to that Column One, front page feature has some bearing on today's calamity: "Some prize the blue gum eucalyptus for its beauty and scent, while others see a messy fire hazard. Battles are being waged across California."

I've read other pieces by that reporter, but had no idea who had written the following until I came across the lines,

"Hours before sunrise, the 20 remaining monks still meditate and chant.

"Buddhist tenets say that all things are impermanent, and fire can be a great teacher in that," said Alec Henderson, a former defense attorney from Los Angeles who forswore material wealth to take up the Zen creed of "one robe, one bowl."

Henderson left Wednesday with the task of safekeeping Ginger, the monastery dog. Now he's holding his breath, along with thousands of Zen followers and former Tassajara guests, hoping the monastery emerges intact.

But if the flames prove too tough to defeat, the monks plan to retreat along with the Forest Service firefighters.

"We won't risk anybody to save the buildings," said Devin Patel, a bearded 28-year-old who serves as the monastery's fire marshal.

"The buildings can burn, but you can't actually burn down Tassajara. Fire can never touch Tassajara's heart."

And then, somehow, I knew without looking who had written it, The L.A. Times feature writer, Eric Bailey. And, not far from Tassajara, ourselves living near a eucalyptus grove with the ever-present danger of Urban Wildfire, as opposed to forest fire, I somehow took heart in the Buddhist tenet that "all things are impermanent, and fire can be a great teacher in that." It's the first time in days that I felt uplifted, odd to say... almost inspired by something I read in a newspaper. One takes something away from the poems one reads, from fiction and nonfiction... Jesus, maybe it was the context and our own situation re: Urban wildfire... the risk... of loss... home and... all that's in it. And yet, and yet... [reading this over, retired English teacher, I'd mark it up... awful, awful writing... oh, fuck it! I'm just trying to make a point.]

Anyway, excerpting more from Eric Bailey's 6.27.08 story:

"...By Wednesday, flames were just three miles to the west. The sheriff ordered an evacuation, but a skeleton crew was allowed to stay.

They cut branches, raked leaves and laid out fire hose. They triple-checked the two big pumps that can be used to draw water from the 50,000-gallon swimming pool and the riffles of Tassajara Creek.

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  Photos: Wildfire closes in on Big Sur
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  Video: Fires threaten Big Sur

As ash fell from the sky, Mako Voelkel, the monastery's tenzo, or cook, was cutting fire breaks as well as vegetables.

"I'm feeling pretty good about it," she said. "We're prepared."

She and the others were working from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., with time off only for meals.

Fires hit the monastery twice in the last three decades. In 1977 and 1999, flames burned all around the complex. Each time, the losses were kept relatively minor, thanks to the firefighting monks and professional crews from the U.S. Forest Service.

That's auspicious: With its remote locale, the monastery can't get fire insurance.

David Zimmerman, Tassajara director, expects a rerun. The monks will don yellow, flame-resistant fire jackets and yellow helmets with protective shrouds and will work to stamp out spot fires. Everyone, he said, feels "happy and honored to be here right now."

Late Friday, help arrived. A Forest Service strike team pulled in, along with a 30-man crew of firefighting inmates. They'll be fed out of the monastery kitchen.

Hours before sunrise, the 20 remaining monks still meditate and chant.

"Buddhist tenets say that all things are impermanent, and fire can be a great teacher in that," said Alec Henderson, a former defense attorney from Los Angeles who forswore material wealth to take up the Zen creed of "one robe, one bowl."

Henderson left Wednesday with the task of safekeeping Ginger, the monastery dog. Now he's holding his breath, along with thousands of Zen followers and former Tassajara guests, hoping the monastery emerges intact.

But if the flames prove too tough to defeat, the monks plan to retreat along with the Forest Service firefighters.

"We won't risk anybody to save the buildings," said Devin Patel, a bearded 28-year-old who serves as the monastery's fire marshal.

"The buildings can burn, but you can't actually burn down Tassajara. Fire can never touch Tassajara's heart."

eric.bailey@latimes.com

Killer Of Killer Trees Out On A Limb, Eucalyptus Worship vs. Urban Wildfire

Eucalyptus Worship versus Urban Wildfire. See Mike Neff's Web Del Sol / The Potomac / a journal of poetry and poetics (Washington, D.C.) for more on this story.

The issue: 1) we and our neighbors live near a grove of blue gum eucalyptus, AKA "gasoline trees"; 2) summer is now upon us and so, too, is the risk of urban wildfire; 3) after 20 years of debate, the issue is still unresolved.

Now, following the "Martin Fire," our neighbors and friends in Bonny Doon are moving back into their homes, i.e., those lucky enough to still have a home!
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The story:

So there was the headline, “The killer of killer trees is out on a limb in Santa Cruz... with a lead, “Robert Sward, 68, of Santa Cruz, doesn’t look, sound or act like a tree murderer.”

The paper, The Sacramento Bee, after a few kind words about my poetry (“his verse, more lovely than any weed tree...”) went on, “One might suppose Robert would obey the city ordinance that protects ‘heritage trees.’ Instead, he flings it down and dances upon it.”

Yes, much as I love Santa Cruz, I’ve been at war with the city fathers, the majority of whom defend all trees no matter where they came from or what idiot planted them in the wrong hemisphere because only God can make a tree. [I'm paraphrasing here from a feature on blue gum eucs in Audubon Magazine.]

“These so-called progressives speak in a way that would delight Lewis Carroll,” I am quoted as saying. “A local version of the Duchess recently told me, ‘Diseased or not, two blue gum eucs constitute a grove... and the tree you removed was a member of a grove.’ All that was missing from our exchange was a queen to declare, ‘Off with his head!’”

The blue gum eucalyptus—or ‘gasoline tree,’ as firefighters call it—is an invasive exotic from Australia that evolved with fire. Fire doesn’t kill blue gums. Instead, it clears out the competition and opens their seed pods.

Soon after murdering a tree, I stood before Santa Cruz City Council, our lawyer present, facing a $9000.fine. For what? Removing one euc and lopping off a few branches from another.

The grove in question, the four or five shallow-rooted, fire-prone monsters endangering our home, is situated on our property, property on which we pay taxes. Our property, our trees, our taxes.

It all started in 1991 with the Oakland Hills/Berkeley fire which killed 20 people and caused more than $5 billion damage. Fire officials determined the blue gum euc was a key cause of that tragedy and also the fire storm that later struck Australia. Australia, where the shallow-rooted, unstable gasoline trees are also known as ‘widow-makers.’ Why? Because of their tendency to drop heavy branches or fall over without warning.

After reading about the Oakland Hills fire, I did a little research. What I learned was that eucs are the original burn baby burn trees. A little lightning, a careless smoker, a kid with a firecracker, that’s all it takes.

Hearing of our plight, which we share with hundreds of other Californians, the Los Angeles Times ran a front page feature, “Tempest in the Treetops... Some prize the blue gum eucalyptus for its beauty and scent, while others see a messy fire hazard. Battles are being waged across California.”

“After a decade of unsuccessfully fighting City Hall for permission to ax his grove, Sward—a poet, retired college professor and avowed environmentalist—resorted to a botanical form of civil disobedience. He hired a tree cutter to take them out.

“Scarcely had the buzz of the chain saw kicked up when city parks inspectors—‘tree police,’ as some locals call them—stepped in, halted the cutting and hit Sward with fines initially totaling $9,000.”

Maybe I should have known better when, in 1985, I moved here and learned that the most popular film ever shown in Santa Cruz was The King of Hearts, starring Alan Bates. In World War I, as a German army retreats, they booby-trap the whole town to explode. The locals flee and a gaggle of cheerful lunatics escape the asylum and take over.

Again, I love Santa Cruz. I love the people... so much so that prior to the 1991 Oakland Hills fire I might have been persuaded to strip naked, join hands with my friends, encircle and protect a euc tree—see photo above!

But then, after what I learned, innocent no more, I tasted the true nature of the tree.

Yes, I was once politically correct. A stoned out of his mind innocent. Yes, yes, and holier than thou. That was in the days before political correctness became a force that would determine the outcome of elections. That was back before I became “an enemy of the people.” That is, an enemy of the blue gum euc. Fucking trees.

You don’t run for office, certainly not in this arena, unless you’re PC and pro-euc. Hence the power of those who would fine us $9,000.

That, in brief, is the story. True, City Council later reduced the fine to $1500., which our lawyer suggested we pay.

“All of which has Santa Cruz’s tree-killing poet [and his neighbors] bewildered,” says the L.A. Times. Yes, it’s true. I am bewildered.

“Sward doesn’t see the sense of it: These are his trees. This is his danger.

“’There are people in Santa Cruz, Sward said, ‘who believe the blue gum euc is more important than human life.’” And that’s not an exaggeration. An esteemed arbortist who himself works for the city told me, “There are people on Santa Cruz City Council who wouldn’t move a eucalyptus if it were lying across the body of a small child.”

Anyway, the blue gum eucs are still there. The grove overhanging our home is still there. The politically correct are still in charge. Nice people, well-intentioned. And so it is we, and thousands of other Californians, face another year with our homes and our lives, and our children’s lives, still at risk.

We're talking here about urban wild fires. "Okay, so what would constitute an emergency whereby we could chop 'em down?" I once asked a politically saavy fire chief. "Well, the trees would actually have to be on fire. Then you could remove 'em!" he replied.

Beverly Hills, 90210

[I have my daughter Hannah Sward's permission to run this brief excerpt from a work in progress, Diary of a Non-Starlet]

"On the Set of Beverly Hills, 90210”

Author’s note: Chloe is an L.A.-based, aspiring 22 year old actress with a Master of Dramatic Arts degree working as a TV and movie extra -- and stripper -- while she waits to break into the Hollywood scene. What follows is the opening section of a book titled Diary of a Non-Starlet. A work of fiction, the book begins January 3, 1997.


January 3 - Breaking in

Some people do this for a living. They’re the ones with portable lawn chairs, a small wardrobe they carry around everywhere on hangers and a cellular phone to make endless calls about the next day’s work. Some even have a call-in service that they pay for and that guarantees them five days of work each week as an extra. They’re the “professionals.” The average day is eight to twelve hours on the set. The first eight hours pays $50. for non-union and $100. for union members. Anything after that is overtime.

Naturally, everyone tries to get into the union and not only for the money. Union members get treated with a tad more respect. Union members are one rung up from the bottom.

For example, on some shows non-union extras get paper bag lunches while union members are allowed to walk over to the catering truck and eat whatever and whenever they want. There’s always a professional chef on hand, pancakes, grilled rosemary chicken… you name it!

When it happens to be a big cattle call, it feels quite barbaric. I feel kind of embarrassed ambling over to the catering truck in front of all the other extras. Like I’m some princess. Sometimes some famished soul asks me to bring back a hot roast beef sandwich. I hate it. If I were to say no, it’s like I’m some sort of Nazi. And if I say yes, I feel like some sort of spy smuggling contraband over the border.

Most of us haven’t given up hope of one day becoming what we went to school and trained for – to find paying work as actors and actresses with lines.

They don’t say ‘Extras’ when they call you, they just say, ‘Background.’ It sounds harsh, but really that’s all you are. And so you go where you’re told. You become what you are called, “Background.”

Mr. Megaphone picks up his instrument. “Background,” he bellows, and everyone puts down their books, magazines, junk food, etc., climbs out of their lawn chairs, and mope over to the designated spot. My habit of making the best of every situation doesn’t apply to this lousy job and I hate the happy nerds, the enthusiastic extras who jump up and try to look as if they’re having a good time.

Yet here I am . . . but what’s the appeal?

I get to read and write and there’s lots of leisure time and I don’t mind getting paid for that, even if it’s only $100. I’d rather do this than wait tables . . . so I’m doing this while waiting for a chance to act, which is what makes this extra work somehow endurable.

And it’s a continual process. You may land one acting job, but that doesn’t mean there’s going to be another and so you still have to do something in between . . . jobs in between jobs to pay your rent.

[sample... more to come...]

(copyright (c) 2008, Hannah Sward)

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Hannah Sward lives in Los Angeles and is a recent graduate of Antioch University. Another sample of her writing, "Starving," may be found in Alimentum, The Literature of Food, Issue 4, 2007. Hannah's stories have appeared in a number of online publications.

www.alimentumjournal.com