A DOGWALK TO THE NEWLY GREEN

Another visit to the Burned Lands with our dog Billy

Photographs by Paul G Ryan

Things that grow, the green grass, the green leaves, were already coming back. Coming back on their own.
But the man made things that were incinerated in the fires, were gone. They were not going to rebuild themselves

THE WILL ROGERS HOUSE

This time I walked along Rivas road and up the back way to see what was left of Will Rogers house. A skeleton.

Both The mansions and quaint cottages along the way were destroyed. Burned and by now their land bulldozed flat by the US Corps of Engineers.

We waked up the steep back trail to the Will Rogers Park, to a view of the Polo Field – empty save for a couple of firefighters playing golf. They said hello.

Many times I had thought of visiting the inside of the Rogers House but never did. One of those reminders to do things, not put them off.

A second floor fireplace which seemed unusual. And first floor bathtub.

Sprouts of leaves pushing their way through black bark of trees that seemed dead but wern’t. Bare earth hillsides had turned now more green than black.

But everything manmade was gone, not coming back on its own.

In recent rains, the naked earth was washed down hill. Toward a flatter lands. Is it building up anywhere ? Or like entropy?

Over and into Evans Road where muti million dollar homes were destroyed, seemingly not by a wildfire but by some super blowtorch that selectively melted even metals.

We heard a story from someone who felt that what they had in a safe deposit box at a Palisades Bank was safe only to find that the heat of fire, while didn’t burn them, had turned their documents to ash.

THE DOG THAT CAUGHT THE CAR

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