By Ed Piper
I went out to the Alpine fire area the other day.
The place has held a special spot in my heart ever since I taught at Barrett High School (Camp Barrett) from Sept. 1998 to May 2000.
I taught boys who were "wards" of the state once they were each sentenced to time at Barrett. One day they would come to class. The next day they would go out on a work crew to repair roads or some other task.
My students were high-school age. It was a learning two years for me, with a boy who was drugged up and zoned out so as to be sedated and calm during his time in school. To others who wore their big, heavy blue work jackets in class. Still others who did their work, expressed interest in some of the subjects we taught, and hopefully made their way in life to overcome the error (or errors) they had made in their teen years to break their probation.
Back to the fire: I witnessed devastation as I drove the other day. I don't know if the Barrett facility (rebuilt after I was there to a gleaming new set of classrooms) made it through the fire. I couldn't get down that far--a locked gate blocked my path.
As I slowed more and more on my drive through the area, and began to take in what I was really seeing, the melancholy--the sadness--of the power of intense fire to scorch the earth and leave only stumps of trees in its wake sank in.
Where my students are now, 20 years later, is hopefully healthy, productive lives. Many made it through after serving their time. The really bad kids got shipped to "Y.A." (California Youth Authority in Camarillo). The good ones got released back to their homes in San Diego, and a lesson learned, I presume.
The interlocking message of fire tells us that life moves on. Bad things happen to good people. Thank God for our firefighters, who were out at the so-called Valley fire south of Alpine last month and earlier this month braving the elements--and hot sparks of the fire.
A piece of plywood had been propped in front of a house back up the road from Barrett: "If you don't live here, go away. If you don't live here, you will be shot." It was ominous. Someone had to be breathing resentment and bitterness over their misfortune, and they were warning anyone unfortunate to come upon their place what they might do to them.
Small "buds", I call them, are sprouting up in the fire area. They are new buds from the old, burned vegetation that hold promise for the renewal of the Valley fire area.
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