vaxjedi | (no subject)

I grew up in Southern California.

My grandparents lost their home to one of the fires. They lost a horse, but the zebras are okay.

(Yes, my grandfather bred zebras. He was always majorly into animals. he raised all sorts of odd things.)

My parents never got evacuated, but one town over did (where

ryoganox grew up before he moved near me in High School).

The fires in San Diego encircled the little mining town of Julian, which was known nowadays for its apple orchards. I moved there when I was 5, and moved away to San Bernardino when I was 13. My mom told me that the area of the woods that we lived in was hit by the fire. I don't know if the houses we lived up there made it through. Or the Pine Hills Lodge, which was the only real landmark in the area. My sister was in some of the musicals in the dinner theatre they did there.

I clearly remember how to get to my old homes from the center of Julian. I'd been wanting to go back there, just to see the old places again, to see some of the huge rocks I climbed on, to walk some of the roads I walked back from the school bus stop. To see Dudley's Bakery in Santa Ysabel. To see Lake Cuyamaca and the Oakzanita Trailer Park.

I just looked up Oakzanita on the net. It is a campground in the Thousand Trails network. My dad worked there as a salesperson. On weekends and during the summer, he'd go to work and drop me off and I'd play in the woods. I met Art Burke there - the fellow who recently died and left me as one of the recipients of his life insurance.

It got hit hard. It lost the main three structures. I remember those. I grew up in those.

I never thought of myself as tied too much to my past. I've always been more interested in new things and the future.

I just looked up the Julian School District on the net. I looked at the teachers listed in the Junior High and Elementary school. I remember a lot of those names.

I guess I became so used to cutting my losses and going on with life that I'd never truly considered that my memories from my past would affect me so much.

Good god, I found a web page for Romano's Italian Restaurant. I remember when they opened that. I remember my sister went to school with Joey Romano.

And I found the webpage for the Pine Hills Lodge. It's still standing! The bed and breakfast next door was destroyed though.

I want to go down to San Diego and see Julian again. I don't know how though. We'll never afford it.

When did all of this become so important to me?