Fire lessons

Back in 2004 Cindy and I were given a painful learning opportunity when, much to our surprise, our house caught on fire.

If you’re like me, you figure house fires happen to other people. Our house was wired by pros, we were always careful with candles, and all the smoke detectors were (supposed to be) working. We were good citizens.

Still, on an early morning following a night of heavy rainstorms in Dayton -- when I was in New Orleans with my mother to see Cindy’s sister’s art exhibit -- odd things happened in the electrical system of our house and the power box went up in flames. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but be advised that it was a hot time in the old town that night. Well, morning, anyway.

What made the fire even more painful was the fact that we had just months prior finished a complete gut and remodel of our kitchen. Oh, was it gorgeous! And, no, the wiring in the new kitchen didn’t have anything to do with the fire. Our guy had done a good, safe job. I could try to explain what technicians think happened, but such isn’t really important now.

One of the first things I learned, I’d have to say, is another lesson on patience. Imagine having your spouse call you at 5 am while you’re away on a nice trip with your octogenarian mother, telling you your house is on fire. Everybody was okay, she stressed. She and the cats were in a safe place.

But the building you have come to know as home was burning as she spoke. And not just any part of the house, but the lower level, the area you personally live in most of the time. On that floor is your office, your music, your computer, and your favorite chair facing the tv that brings you your Reds games and golf on Sunday afternoons. And there wasn’t a darned thing I could do about it -- with a 12 hour drive ahead of Mom and me. Patience.

A bigger lesson for me, though, developed over the week following the fire. We had plans to travel to Maine to put in some volunteer hours at the Audubon Camp on Hog Island right about then. What to do? Well, we couldn’t do much with the house. Insurance adjusters had a week or two of work to do, and contractors needed time to put bids together. We were living at a Residence Inn and could do nothing to help. So we figured we had nothing to lose by going to Maine to do some good. So we did.

One night there was a reception on the island for some local folks Maine Audubon was hoping to entice for the capital campaign. One of the guys that came was a stonemason. Don’t know that I’ve ever met one of those before. I was interested.

Turns out this guy has like twelve kids. And his house burned down. Not localized damage to a couple rooms like us, but burned down. Since the family had lived in the house for generations, they didn’t carry insurance. Sounds like so many families who lost all in the Lower Ninth Ward during Katrina. But I digress.

All the guy and his wife could do was farm kids out to neighbors and relatives for the duration. They decided to rebuild their home themselves and in the process, many volunteer hours were spent when neighbors helped neighbors put lives back together. It did, for them, take a whole village.

When folks asked the stonemason and his wife what they could do, they were given something concrete to contribute. In our case when friends asked what they could do, we just shrugged our shoulders. The insurance company was running the show on our house repair and taking care of everything, bless ‘em. They assigned us an adjuster who counseled us into how to proceed. We just went along for the ride.

But the folks in Maine who saw a family burned out of their homestead were able to act differently: they rolled up their sleeves and actually did something. Maybe it was boarding a kid. Maybe mucking out fire damage. Maybe sorting through belongings to see what could be saved. Maybe mudding up new drywall or just bringing a casserole for the host of helpers. The point is, these folks deepened relationship by coming forward to help a neighbor family in need.

I know the many friends who offered us help really meant it. If we could have told them what we needed, they would have done it. But in our modern society where families are protected from damage by homeowner insurance, a company takes over, not the village.

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate Erie Insurance making us whole. True, they dropped us 12 months later, but they did their job in putting our place back together.

Still, a chance was missed for neighbors to come together to aid other neighbors. Community barn-raising was tried and true in the old days. Folks got to help and build deeper relationships in the process. Aiding ones in need. Looks like a lost art in our time and in our neck of the woods. And that’s too bad.

Today’s elder idea:

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those that favor fire.

from Robert Frost’s ‘Fire and ice”