TheBanyanTree: Corn Moon 2023

Mon Sep 4 13:23:39 PDT 2023

Hi folks,

	Ooooh, does this bring it all back! When our house burned down in the 1991 east bay hills fire, there were 3800 other structures that burned to the ground. Five thousand people were out on the street. We were just six of them (and a cat). It was a total loss. Four feet deep of fine ash. The fireplace still stood, as did others around the neighborhood. Those and the ubiquitous Weber barbecuers as if a fleet of flying saucers had landed for a tour. There were tour buses too, came from all over to gape at us going through the ashes for remnants. We played a game of, "what was this puddle"? Melted metal and glass in pools. 

	The city blamed us for the fire because (and I’m going to quote the great city of Oakland’s fire chief), "You didn’t have sprinkler systems."  The fire was over 2000 degrees. "What’s that puddle," could have been a sprinkler system. The insurance companies arrived immediately for the cameras. The evening news showed footage of all the concerned, sincere agents, their sleeves rolled up, hiking over the rubble to hand a fat check to the stunned homeowners who are standing knee deep in their history. When the camera crews packed up, the real fun began for the insurance companies. We had to sue them of course. Lie cheat and steal. The pattern of behavior I uncovered doing research for the lawsuit was enough to scare the insurance company into settling, but it took three years. During that time, we moved seven times—a year and a half with my parents in the home I grew up in—my five year old twins wandering around the house with my father on the loose, predator and prey. The idea for me was to know at all times where my father was, no way to keep my eye on two little rabbits.

	And then there was the city, county, state and federal government to deal with. Yes the permits, yes the standing in lines, yes the forms to fill out, yes the wrong line you were standing in and the box you didn’t check that you should have even though it didn’t apply to you. This was before the computer reality. Everything by hand, paper and pen. Copy machines. No email. Walk these forms down to city hall and…………….wait in line. 

	Here and there, houses remained intact, a freak of windstorm dances and luck, the bad kind. Think of living in your nice house while all around you is three years of construction crews. That’s not the only reason I insisted we not rebuild in situ. I imagined building the dream house, like others did. But I also imagined sitting at a table with the insurance company watching, going through ten pages of possible doorknobs——which will they approve and which won’t they? We got out of Oakland as soon as we could. Yes, California. 

	Now there is additional drek to slog through when considering a house. Insurance companies are pulling out of California and depending upon where that house we want to buy happens to stand, it may or may not even be possible to get insurance. If the major companies refuse (due to a zip code and the presence of a tree perhaps) you have to find one of the re-insurers, like Lloyd’s of London who will insure anything if you’re willing to pay for it. I hear from my broker that $40,000 a year is not unusual. A family I know lives in the hills where the fires seem to gather. Their insurance company refused to renew the policy. No other company will insure the house. Maaaaaaybe Lloyd’s of London or another similar rapacious entity. So they thought of selling and moving to a more affordable area. The cost of a house in these parts is staggering. $1,400,000 for a standard two bedroom one and a half bath bungalow, nothing special. You can buy a mansion for $200,000, if you don’t mind living in Detroit. But they can’t move because no one will insure the house, so no one will buy it.

	My heart goes out to your son, Dale, and to all who barely have time and space to suffer such a tragedy because they are engaged fending off the travesties, the ironies and the details. (That’s where the devil sits and laughs, with his Cuban cigars, his hooves up on a clerk’s desk, inventing paperwork).

My heart
goes out,

Tobie

> On Sep 4, 2023, at 7:47 AM, Theta Brentnall via TheBanyanTree <thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com> wrote:
> 
> That's such a gut-punch thing to happen!  Glad you are nearby to lend support.  I hope your county is better about responding to building requests than the one Gerry's old house is in.  They had a fire 3 years ago that took out the garage and the ceiling over the family room.  And the battles began, first with insurance, and then the county started being obnoxious.  Gerry and his brother got a really good offer for the house as it stood and they took it.  Our son-in-law drove by there a few weeks ago and it was evident that nothing had been done.  He was looking at it when the new owner drove up and said they had gone through four rounds of drawings, engineering, and code updates and the most recent permit submittals had just been rejected yet again.  Of course, that's California for you.  Hopefully Texas is more sensible about getting the paperwork done so the building can begin.  How nice that the family has a good support system.
> 
> Theta
> 
> On 9/3/2023 4:17 PM, dale.m.parish--- via TheBanyanTree wrote:
>> My girlfriend Judy's son's home burned a few weeks ago.  We were at my house
>> when he texted her "House on fire," and she texted back "Whose house," and
>> he replied "MINE!"
>> 
>>  
>> We got there after the 2nd fire truck.  They had all been out in the pool
>> cooling off, when she went in to get something from the kitchen and Alexa
>> was blasting, "FIRE! FIRE! EVACUATE!."  The bedroom door was too hot to
>> open, and they called the volunteer fire department, but the house had a
>> metal roof, and the bedroom fire had progressed into the attic.  By the time
>> the fire department could get the roof cooled down enough to walk on and cut
>> a large hole through the metal, most of the contents of the house were
>> cooked or melted.  The structure didn't fail, but all the interior walls,
>> ceiling and some of the flooring was compromised.  They had been planning to
>> remodel the structure soon, so now they are going to get to rebuild from the
>> ground up.
>> 
>>  
>> No one was injured (well, I got a cut leg plowing through a barbed wire
>> fence in the dark, but other than that...) and none of the critters were
>> lost.  She breeds Australian Shepherds and had eight -- four adults and four
>> pups who had been thought to be under the house, but they had evacuated to
>> the woods and came back after the commotion and firetrucks left.  She got
>> her finger monkey, Harold, the flying squirrel, out first hand. Barn Cat,
>> who's normally fed on top of the shop came out of hiding the next day.
>> Horses and cattle stayed away from all the smoke.
>> 
>>  
>> They had a lot of friends, who came out of the woodwork to bring food,
>> clothes, camper trailers, storage boxes, etc. They are going to live in a
>> camper trailer parked between the old house and the shop while the old house
>> is demolished and plans are formulated for the new.  The swimming pool still
>> gets afternoon use to cool off and wash off the soot as they steadily go
>> through the remains to salvage what they can.  Electricity has been restored
>> to the shop and there are fans still blowing to push out the smokey smell.
>> Since I'm only a few clicks away and Judy lives on the other side of the
>> county, and had her washer go out the week after the fire, we've been the
>> washateria stand-in for the clothes they have accumulated.  This weekend,
>> they took off recovery to go on a Labor Day Weekend vacation that has been
>> planned since early in the summer, to New Braunfels, in an attempt to float
>> the Guadalupe River, but the first picture they posted indicated that the
>> innertubes were too thick in the river to ever go downstream.  Still, hope
>> that they are recharging their batteries.  Judy and I have been feeding the
>> critters till tomorrow while they rest up for the return to the grind.
>> Since her daughter-in-law owns an insurance agency, we expect that she'll
>> get everything that she said was over-insured, but she's meticulous on
>> photographing and cataloging everything both salvaged and destroyed.
>> 
>>  
>> Judy and I will visit the Guadalupe next weekend, hopefully after all the
>> crowds have gone.  Looking forward to it.
>> 
>>  
>> Hugs,
>> 
>> Dale
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> Dale M. Parish                                   For All Of Mankind'S
>> Supposed Accomplishments,
>> 
>> 628 Parish RD                                    Our Continued Existence Is
>> Dependent Upon 20
>> 
>> Orange TX 77632-0264                   Centimeters Of Topsoil And The Fact
>> That It Rains.
>> 
>> Dale.M.Parish at gmail.com                                           --Toilet
>> Stall Wall
>> 
>> 409-790-2352
>> 
>>  
>> 
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> 
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At my first meeting of the faculty wives club of the University of California at Berkeley way back pre post feminism:

Other wife looking at my name tag: Hello.  What does your husband do?

I: I’m a musician.

Other wife:  No.  I asked, "what does your husband do?"

I:  He married a musician.

Tobie Helene Shapiro
tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>