This will be a short diary. I once had a small kitchen fire at my house, and when I called 911, the first person to respond got there in 90 seconds. (it was a small town with volunteer firefighters and many of them worked at home. The guy was Bruce and he was a neighbor). The fire was easily contained. I was always a supporter of public safety personnel, but more so after that.
We are watching the L.A. wildfires and it is gripping. I watched Anderson Cooper as he reported from a scene and remarking on how amazing it was to see the planes go below the horizon of far hills into the canyons to drop water or retardant.
At this moment I highly recommend two movies. The first is “Always” from 1989, directed by Steven Speilberg.
Here is the trailer:
And the opening scene:
I saw Always when it came out, and recommended it to my folks. They had already seen it and my Mom was quick to point out that it was modeled after “A Guy Named Joe,” which was a World War Two movie starring Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne:
My mom had four sisters but only one brother, and he enlisted in the Army in World War Two. He became a fighter pilot flying a Lockheed p-38 lightning. A Guy Named Joe had been released in March 1944 and her brother was killed in December of that year, at the very beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. She told me that Always had reminded her of the intense mix of emotions associated with the earlier film.
