Fire

pdf print email

I was standing atop Reservoir Hill this past Saturday, watching hawks wheel in the thermals and enjoying a morning of cross-country racing. Off in the distance I could see not one, but two new fires. Strange how you become a brush-fire expert here in Southern California, but it was obvious from the angry black color of the smoke (turning to an ash-gray as the plume rose and drifted on the Santa Ana winds), that these fires were serious. Something large and laden with fuel was burning.

After we finished racing I got my team back on the bus for the ride home. We made an In-N-Out stop, then got on the freeway, thinking we had a short cruise home then onto the rest of the day. Well, as they say, if you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans. We pulled onto that 57 freeway just moments after the fires had caused its closure. There was no possibility of turning around, thanks to a large median barrier. And the nearest offramp was five miles up the road, which meant waiting our turn in line for several long hours.

The grumbling started right about then, and the petulant awareness that they would be stuck with one another for a great deal of the foreseeable future made everyone a little territorial. It's one thing to be teammates. It's quite another to be hostages. Fire engines drove up the median. Fire-dousing planes flew low overheard. Cars on the freeway were overheating and their drivers were just abandoning them, and heading for the offramp on foot.

We had left Mt. SAC at 1 p.m. By 3:30 we were still a couple miles from that offramp. Things grew restless. I hadn't brought reading material or a computer, and my cell was going dead. That's when I gave a little prayer of thanks for modern technology. See, the bus had a video system. So in went a DVD of this year's New York Marathon. All my runners spent the next hour critiquing the world's best marathoners, talking about stride and pace and strategy, just as I have so many times before with them.

I took a spin back through the bus as evening set in, making sure there were no love connections. Then we settled in for the only remaining DVD, a copy of "Return of the King." This is a long movie. A very long movie. How long were we stuck on that bus? Long enough to watch "Return of the King" in its entirety. I had to admit that I actually enjoyed it, geek factor notwithstanding.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, there was a sea change. The grumbling stopped. Talk of a "bonding experience" blossomed. The concept of endurance took on a whole new meaning. Make no mistake: the devastation caused by those fires was not lost on anyone. Driving through that smoke was like witnessing the end of the world, and the smell of smoke pouring into the cabin was like sitting in an old Denny's, in between a pair of chain-smokers.

But I know that bus ride will become memorable. That's the way life happens: the mishaps remain in the memory bank longer than the successes. I remember a race in Saipan because I flatted and had to do the entire jungle ride on bare rims. I remember my first Raid Gauloises because it went horribly wrong. I remember a long ago cross-country race because I tripped in the first mile and got trampled.

The bus ride was six hours long. We could have driven to Mammoth in that time -- or Vegas. By the time we finally piled off, the siege effect was complete. We had bonded, yet again, as a group. I'm not saying I'd do it again, but I will say that apart from my immediate family, there's no group of people I'd rather be stranded six hours than my runners.

Comments & Feedback

Leave a Comment

Name: Email:  do not notifynotify Title: Comment: Code: Please input the code from the image above (case sensitive). Click image to generate new code.

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."