I left
Redding in 1986 to go to college and returned throughout the years during holidays
and summer vacations. The home I left on Keswick Dam Road was lived in for
nearly 40 years until July 26, 2018, the evening the Carr Fire blew up and
wiped out over 1,000 homes on the west side of town. It is nothing compared to
the Camp Fire that is currently burning not 100 miles away and that has
destroyed 10,000 homes/structures and counting.
There are
so many memories I have of the house I came of age in, and returned to again
and again bringing my children to play with childhood toys like the alphabet
block ride-on truck, table hockey game, Sears Brix Blox, and Tinkertoys. The Fisher
Price Little People items were a favorite - house, school, bus, airport,
village sets with people, pets, furniture, cars, planes, helicopters all gone. I
loved the village mail truck with plastic "letters" to deliver and
the airport baggage truck trailing carts with luggage. My sister and I made up
so many little dialogs to have with the dentist, teacher, and various other residents
as we played. Play is not nearly the same in the digital age.
There were books
lost that stung. My parents both loved to read, thus instilling my love of
reading. Lost in the fire were hard-cover series of Cherry Ames mysteries and
Bobbsey Twins adventures that my mom purchased with her hard-earned money in
her younger years. I lament the loss of a much-read illustrated children's
encyclopedia set that was a source of knowledge in those pre-internet days. I
was a prolific reader and won a prize in 4th grade for reading just about everything
in my grade school library. Ironically, it was a book - of stories for children.
I wish I remembered the inscription.
My mom lost
sentimental wearable items - bridesmaids dresses, tailored cheongsams from her
first visit to Hong Kong in the 50s, classic baby blue Converse One Stars, and
a few suits and dresses from when she first started working in NYC in the 60s
among them. Then there were some of my dad's old suits, sport coats, and sweaters
she had kept after he passed away. There were items I left behind in a dresser
purchased when I was a baby - hand crocheted vests made by my paternal grandma,
prom dresses, letterman's jacket, track team tees, and a tee with the first
logo of the fledgling Chinese Students' Association of UC Santa Cruz. I met my
husband playing intramural sports on the CSA teams.
Even
household furnishings were dear - lost included that baby dresser and a
nightstand, a set of two dressers, one for my sister and one for me; the items my
parents bought to set up one of their early homes together after marrying in
1966 in, perhaps, my first home, an apartment in Stuyvesant Town, Manhattan, or
the first my parents owned, 60 Jaffe Street, Staten Island. There was a
mid-century starburst clock, hand-made afghan, and furniture built to last -
the bedroom set of ebony hardwood including a headboard, dressers and mirror;
the dining room, sofa, and side table sets, and the Lazy Boy recliner my dad so
loved. There was formal china, silver and silverware, crystal, lead-crystal, and
copper-bottom Revere Ware pots and pans received as wedding gifts, unbreakable 70s
melamine dishes, Corelle dishes, and early microwave Corningware Grab It bowls
and sandwich plates, stainless Oneida silverware, mixing bowls, and measuring
cups, and the kitchen canisters holding coffee, tea, sugar and flour.
There was
the sewing table with built-in Singer sewing machine, a four-spool serger, a
50s Smith-Corona manual typewriter and adding machine. Cherished were the irreplaceable
photo albums and photos in frames, 8mm movie projector and reels documenting my
parent's and our early family years, the small leather-wrapped transistor radio, VHS and audio cassettes and machines to
play them, the record player and LPs dating from the 50s and 60s as well as those
singles on 45s from the eighties, and our first video game console Magnavox Odyssey
2. The not so old items included the Wii I bought my mom so she could exercise
using Wii Fit, desktop computers, laptop, and an iPad mini.
In the
garage were a Redding built Lemurian Skyway bicycle and an older Schwinn, and lots
of Sears Craftsman tools that my dad taught me how to use - building and fixing
things, or tinkering around adjusting the carburetor or the timing belt on my
first car, a "three-on-a-tree" Toyota Corona Deluxe.
There are undoubtedly
more items not remembered as I write, but these are all earthly things... My
mom says perhaps the loss is a blessing in disguise saving my sister and I the
trouble of going through everything after her demise.
