Life before 2008 14 Sep 2006 10:00 am
Fire
We went to bed just after 11. We’d watched last year’s Country Music Awards, saw Sugarland, Rascal Flats, Kenny Chesney (who doesn’t sing a song dh doesn’t love) and the indomitable Keith Urban at the piano. Darkness felt good and we snuggled into one another with the cool night air wafting in from the open window.
gratuitous use of imagary, I know.
Red Fox and Fly had other plans. They yipped and yapped and barked and growled. They often start barking at night so at first we didn’t pay too much attention. Then they started pacing on the porch and running circles around the house, barking incessantly. David got up to “shush†them at the window and when he did, he saw the orange glow of a huge ball of fire.
We hadn’t smelled smoke because the wind was blowing the other way. We didn’t startle at the sound of sirens, still being used to hearing them daily in the city. It still dawns on us slowly that if we hear them out here, it’s because something BIG is happening.
And what it was the 100 year old house at the end of the street. The house that used to be a store. It faced the tracks and had become worn and run down. The latest occupants had only recently moved out; I doubt it had gone through many modernizations or updates in the past several decades.
We stood under the black night sky punctuated by a million white stars, in the cold and wet grass, barefooted and pajama-ed, and watched as the flames engulfed it. Water sprayed through holes in the roof and made the fire inside dance around, which gave the sickening impression of movement inside the house through the windows. Thankfully though, to everyone’s knowledge it was empty. Probably started by a drug accident or wiring problem, or, as some locals think, intentionally burned in attempt to get the insurance money.
Today it’s blackened ash and a smoldering pile of what used to be. The firefighters managed to save the huge walnut growing nearby that could have spread the fire to the neighboring house. I thought as I walked home in barefeet and the train whistled by on the tracks, past the fire, that one more “something†of this town- that- once was was now gone. Old wood that was raised as a new century came in, as a town was born, that saw generations of trains rumble past, was now dust.
This time next year the site will be invisible save for the tangle of kudzu taking it’s place.
on 14 Sep 2006 at 11:06 am 1.Sarah K. said …
How sad.
on 14 Sep 2006 at 12:17 pm 2.Sarah said …
What a sad story. I just hope it doesn’t become a check cashing place or something along those lines. That’s what always seems to happen when something that was once beautiful goes out of business around here.
Maybe you could get the ball rolling for a small plaque there if the building had any historic significance and they could turn the land into a nice park or garden. Just a thought.
on 14 Sep 2006 at 12:25 pm 3.Tia said …
It’s the story of this town though. Across the street from this site was the old movie theater and the library. Now it’s a gravel walking path and a play area.
Where there once was hustle and bustle and trains and traffic there is now a quiet cluster of houses and quiet streets. I expect the post office will soon be gone as well.
There’s very little new construction around here so I guess it could be worse! No strip malls comin’ here for a very long time!
on 14 Sep 2006 at 12:50 pm 4.Joel said …
Roughly half the town IS a park. I’m not kidding either. There’s an open lot large enough to fit two decent sized houses on next to some sort of educational building across from their house with a playground set next to it. And that’s just about one entire town block (1 of 3).
I doubt they will get rid of the post office. The brand new handicapped ramp (probably from the ADA lawsuit TN lost) and the fact that they’re federal employees coupled with the work discouraging them from having to delete a zip code and redraw postal routes as well as changing everyone’s address… I think government inertia will save it.
on 14 Sep 2006 at 6:39 pm 5.Sarah said …
Wow, I hope your town doesn’t disappear completely!
No really, it sounds like a quiet, serene, and lovely place to live.