Have you ever been face to face with a wall of fire? Not a campfire or even a big campfire or a bonfire can compare to that conflagration that bakes your skin and screams in your ears.
It was 1972. the summer Olympics were held in Munich and with the spectacle of the opening ceremony still fresh in my mind we headed uphill to the 'back road'. We should have known better. The decision to get the cigarettes may have been the fateful choice, or was it the choices made once we reached our destination?
We often spent hours and even days just wandering the foothills behind our home. We would sometimes pack lunch. Sometimes just take water and sometimes just climb to the top of the hill and sit on the edge of the 'back-road' and spy on the neighborhood. This day would be like no other.
The green car was parked by the curb. I had carefully gotten the keys from my father's room and opened the passenger door. I knew where he kept them. In the glove box or glove compartment as he called it and there they were, an almost complete pack of Parliament cigarettes with their royal blue colored box and stiff foil wrapper. He had smoked them as had my grandmother. I knew I would find some.
We had the treasured cigarettes as we got to the top of the path and on to the 'back-road'. We head south, to our left. The retirement homes were on the left. We were just behind the last home in our own neighborhood. There was a vacant lot that went back about a half acre and then went straight up hill. We didn't normally climb up those hills. The footing was awful and even though we were only 11 and 12 we did know that trying that climb could put us in danger of slipping a falling.
Instead we walked under one of the oak trees, into the cave made by it's thick canopy. We sat down and formed a circle. The four of us passed the pack around. Each one taking out a cigarette and attempting to handle it like we had seen so many adults do. Then we passed around the matches. We were all puffing away and talking childhood nonsense about tv and games we could play. One of us said we could 'pretend'-
kids always pretend - but as any good pretender knows you have to pretend correctly - we are soldiers escaped from a Nazi prison camp. We were hiding in the treeline until we met our contact. We had great imaginations, fired, so to speak by the constant viewing of Rat Patrol, Hogans Heroes, World At War and Audie Murphy.
There we were, four comrades
- American soldiers in WWII - two white, Irish-American kids and their two Japanese American friends. Playing at war. Being kids. Hanging out and being 'bad', thinking we were cool or hot stuff or something other than little kids. Then it happened. For whatever reason. WAIT! For whatever reason? You have four kids, smoking stolen cigarette in the middle of a hot summer day, hanging out underneath an old oak tree, whose base is littered with years and years of dry leaves and fallen branches and fallen bark. We had to have a fire. We are cold. It is now a winter night and we need to stay warm. so we scrape the ground and stack some twigs and leaves and did I forget to mention we have matches? We light a fire. It is small and we cough from the smoke of burning oak and Parliaments. We hear a plane. Now what? The Luftwaffe is out in force hunting us. (but isn't
it night - lol) We are worried that the plane will spot our fire. We panic. We really do panic as we see the flames have crept out of our small circle to ignite some other leaves and twigs. Wait, it isn't the Nazi's, it's our rescue plane. I must signal them. I grasp the best thing to signal a plane at night, a long, dry, crackled and curled piece of eucalyptus bark and I dip it's tattered, arid end into the fire. It takes just a second for the end to be a bright orange flame.
The signal flame is now a torch and the Olympic Theme is hummed. Trumpets blare as the Olympic torch is raised and the parade of athletes begins. As the torch approaches the stalks of grass as they sit in the stands, it is dipped in their honor. Flames lick the dry grass and it ignites. Within seconds a foot of tall, dry, grass is on fire. Then two feet, ten feet, ten yards. Higher and higher the flames reached. The hillside was slowly being eaten by the flames as they methodically moved up the terrain and as the fire moved the flames reached higher and higher. We ran.
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As we reached the 'back-road' we ran into a truck driven by an official looking man and his official looking partner. They seemed official so we gave them the official story. The one we just made up on the spot. "We were walking down the road and we saw this fire and we started to try and put it out and we tried to stop the fire and we couldn't stop the fire and we were trying to stop the fire but the fire kept going and we couldn't stop the fire.". With a knowing glance the man said something to the effect of "You tried to
stop the fire?". I don't recall exactly what he said or we said after that but we ended up at home. As we ran down the hillside to our home, our father was just pulling into the driveway. They were yelling about how big the fire was and did you see it and what were you doing up there and why do you smell of smoke?". We were smoking! Yeah that's why. We stole some of your cigarettes and were smoking. Not wanting to rat ourselves out we had just ratted ourselves out.
Our two Japanese American brothers in arms were gone by this time.. Headed to their own home to give their own explanation as to why they wreaked of burnt wood and grass and tobacco. But we stood firm and we hoped that out comrades wouldn't crack under pressure as we were told to go take a shower and clean up. My brother and I knew we were in trouble. I was responsible for the fire. I had to have an Olympic torch parade in the middle of summer on a hillside covered in tall, dry grass. But as we washed up we tried to concoct and corroborate our stories. We wanted to make sure we would both say the same thing and that we both would stick to the story that we tried to put out the fire but the pressure apparently got too much.
It was rumored that our comrades had broke under the excruciating pain of their father and their mother and their endless interrogation and whatever tricks that interrogation might include. We joked that it probably included Japanese water torture. We were kids and 1972 was not nearly as 'PC' as today. However it happened and however the officials found out is really inconsequential. From what I understand we were suspect the minute we ran into the two men in the truck. Anytime there is a fire, officials are trained to watch the crowd and watch who is around and as important, who is leaving the scene. We had been had. We had been caught. Not by the Nazi's. The Luftwaffe never spotted our fire and the rescue plane saw more than just our signal fire. We were caught with our smoke scented hands in the cookie jar. Busted.
The fire was brought quickly under control. Fortunately the fire department arrived and only four acres were lost. If that fire had continued it's course it would have run into the million dollar homes of Hope Ranch. We got lucky?
Next thing I know we are at the fire station on Hollister Avenue.
Who we talked to and what that conversation entailed has faded from memory. I do know that I was scared and worried, probably more from the wrath of the father than the long arm of the law. Our punishment was to be determined and meted. There would be no jail time nor fine. We would suffer enough.
For the next two summers we spent the day with hand tools, rakes, shovels and sickles cutting back the vegetation on the hill behind our house. It was a dirty, hot job that caused blisters and dry mouth. It had a lasting effect, which was probably the point. That hillside was stripped of all dry brush and we knew that we had escaped a much larger can of worms and punishment. No homes were lost nor were any lives. Lives were changed that day. A day when we should have known better.
