FIRE!

My title is multifacted this morning.  There is the obvious literal meaning, yes there was a HUGE fire near my home last night.  But also, a more abstract meaning is meant to be conveyed as well.

The crime level around me seems to be growing and I find it a bit unnerving, for sure.  Last week, the MPs woke Holly up before 8am because she had been one of atleast two dozen victims of someone's sick joke--one of her tires had been slashed with a knife.  Certainly not the best way to start the day.

Not long before that, an open field in our neighborhood had been set to blazes, leaving about 1/4 acre of charred grass and bush.  Again, this wasn't more than 2 blocks from my house.

Last night, I get a disturbing phone call from Holly, around 12:30am.  I was ready to lay into her because she was calling and waking me up.  I should have known, since she normally comes home quietly, taking care not to wake the rest of us up when she retires from her very long days in PWC/DCFR, that this phone call was serious.  I could hear the panic in her voice immediately.  As she tells me what she's seeing, I step out my back door, and I see the horror--quickly raining down closer to my home.

One of the houses in construction in an adjacent village (River village) from me was completely engulfed in flames.  The flames I could almost see above the tall trees lining the creek that separates my village from the village where the fire was.  Hundreds, even thousands of embers were raining down onto the surrounding areas, spreading quickly across the creek and over some of the houses in my village.  I quickly realized how serious this was as the possibility of secondary fires starting due to the embers escaping hundreds of feet above the source of the fire.

As I'm on the phone with Holly, she describes to me how the house was completely engulfed, nothing but the skeleton frame left, how the fire had already escaped to the trees and powerlines around the house and a garage behind the house.  This was serious, and the fire department seemed to take forever to respond, a call Holly had made 2-3 minutes before she called me.  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the sirens could be heard throughout post and I saw several engines race by my home toward the fire. 

Thank God, there was noone living there.  Thank God, Holly saw the fire as she returned home and called it in.  Who knows how much more could have been damaged if she had not.  But now that the climax of the ordeal has come and passed, there are so many questions to be answered.  For a fire like that to spread so quickly, one would think that it would have had to have been fueled, purposely.  Just days after the tires being slashed all through our village, one can not help but think that this fire, too, is the result of a delinguent running unchecked around the post.

Damn it, parents!  Why can't you keep a better eye on your kids?  I mean how hard is it?  I have a lot on my plate, but I can somehow do it.  It's not that hard.  I know where my kids are, at all times, and if there's any question, they are not allowed to leave the house without their cellphones, which I promptly call or text, if I need an update as to there whereabouts.  As for curfews, my kids are always home by dark.  Whether that is 4:30-5pm in the winter or 8pm in the summer, if it is starting to get dark (if the street lights comes on, they are LATE!) they are home.  Also, I do not go to bed until my kids are fast asleep in their beds.  I sometimes am the "bad guy", because if I am tired and want to go to bed before they are ready to go to bed, my children are not too happy with me.  But these recent events are why I have this rule.  It helps that I am a "in your face" kind of parent, so as a result I have good kids that know that most of what they do, won't go unnoticed by me.  This helps them to keep themselves in check.  But again, parents, this isn't too hard!  Your children, whether they are two or twenty, need your guidance.  Just because your child is fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, doesn't mean you no longer need to parent.  The frontal cortex, where the reasoning skills develop, doesn't completely develop until mid-twenties.  Your teenagers cannot always figure out the consequences of their actions before they act.  They need your help....you did the dirty, not do the duty.  When you decide to have children, you make a lifetime commitment to another being: your child.  So get off your bootie and take responsibility as parents!