Commentator Gerard Van der Leun is — was — a resident of Paradise, California. Now, burned out of his home along with another 30,000 people, he’s taken refuge in Chico.
He writes beautifully about the individuals and businesses of the town “leaving it all on the field” for their bereft and desperate guests.
A must read. There have been a lot of dramatic and moving reports out of Paradise. But nobody says it better. Van der Leun concludes:
They all were leaving it all on the field everywhere in Chico. From Penny’s in the Mall to the Birkenstocks Store downtown on Broadway. In big jobs, and in small jobs, there was a long train of people working at the top of their game no matter what their game was. It has been days of this now in Chico; days of there being no big jobs or small jobs but only the unremitting effort the people to help their fellow citizens no matter what.
And since none of the Acronym Agencies have really shown up yet, this has all been done without any real government organization. Instead, it has been like watching a spontaneous Humanitarian Olympics rise up out of the town itself; and once started it has become as self-organizing and self-sustaining as the fire itself. Today as I moved around Chico I saw a town, untouched itself by the flames, rise up to restore and rebuild the lives of their fellow citizens of Paradise; lives that the fire had stolen. And by the end of the day, you could feel, palpably feel, that Chico knew it would win. Chico was leaving it all on the field.
Tomorrow? Chico will do the same.
If you follow Van der Leun’s work, you’ll know that he’s never gone out of his way to solicit donations. But if you scroll down on any one of this blog posts, you’ll find both a PayPal link and a snailing address in Chico.
A friend’s daughter, son-in-law, and grandson are living with him now. They escaped with what they had on them when they left for work/school. They weren’t able to return home before evacuating. Their house is gone and dog and cat MIA.
Makes one think long and hard about what is in ones go bag/get home bag.
I wish the best for them — and their critters. It’s almost unthinkable; a whole town of nearly 30k people just gone overnight.
‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ Mr. Rogers.
Ron Johnson — Amen. After the Tree of Life Massacre I read an article in one of the mucky-muck magazines (The Atlantic, I think, though I could be wrong), disdaining the way people were suddenly using that expression. The writer sniffed that it was a message meant for children, nothing more, and that it wasn’t even particularly useful for them. Certainly such a simple statement was nothing that should be meaningful to the rest of us.
I read that piece of snottery and thought BIG GIANT FREAKIN’ BS. Simple though Mr. Rogers (actually his mother’s) message may be, it’s far from simplistic. You know, I think it scares some statists that remark is so true and says so much about what individuals and volunteer groups can do.
There’s nothing more frustrating for someone like me who bombs fires for a living to be sitting on my ass watching people losing their homes and even lives south of the border.
Reading that brought tears to my eyes.
Thank you for sharing it, Claire.
Generally, the best thing the government agencies can do is to not show up. It gives real people a chance to do good. I honestly think that one of the major harms of so many “government safety nets” is the disincentive it provides to normal people to help others, breeding or encouraging a selfishness or self-focus on the part of the populous.
“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between
states nor between classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
This is being proved out in California with the looters (evil) and the people in the articles Claire has posted herein (Good).
I read an article in one of the mucky-muck magazines (The Atlantic, I think, though I could be wrong), disdaining the way people were suddenly using that expression. The writer sniffed that it was a message meant for children, nothing more, and that it wasn’t even particularly useful for them.
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
Now I’m off to the local Prepper meeting.