Echoes

"Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant tide
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine"

Okay, so it´s not a Jimmy Buffett song, but I felt a strong calling to bring a verse from my favorite Pink Floyd song to you in hopes that you might watch their DVD "Live at Pompeii". Good stuff. Now, maybe I have mentioned them before, the temblores that are extremely common here in Chile. So far, I´ve probably experienced 6-8 of these earthquakes whose epicenters are far off or possibly even underwater. They result in a shaking or trembling of the earth that rocks the old, wooden pension I´m living in. The other night, my bed got to rocking, no, not in the good way... and I sat up immediately because you just never know if it´s a real earthquake or just a temblor. This one happened to be the latter, but when I went back to sleep I started to dream about an extreme shaking of the pension. And in the ever-so-real dreamland, the structure almost fell over, but thankfully not in reality.

It´s hilarious to me that everytime I pass by the local pet food store, there are all sorts of pigeons getting a free meal of different types of feed and seed. With dog food, cat food, bird food to choose from, I just wonder which one is their favorite. I never cease to laugh when I pass the carnicería, or butcher´s shop, to find a vagrant guard dog sleeping just outside the wide open front door. You´re just torturing yourself pal, although at the end of the day, the well-rested canine might possibly get a handout for his invaluable services.

Two days ago, I set out to examine an old, rustic cemetary that I previously spied from the bottom of the hill. The elaborate graves consisted of immense monuments that would dwarf many a house in Valpaiaíso. I guess these tombs are a type of house as well, but are used to provide shelter for life after death. Sepulchres that guard your bones from the elements and scavengers during the long, cold, eternal resting place, located 6 feet under ground. Or should I say 2 meters bajo de la tierra? I was disappointed to see Cementerio Número 2 barred from entry, so I snapped a few pictures from outside the 13 foot, steel railing and continued on up the hill. I´ve recently taken to the rapidly emerging sport of "urban hiking". As the microbuses and colectivos quickly pass by, you must resist the urge to stick your thumb out and hitch a ride to the top. With my favorite blue shirt drenched in sweat, I rounded a bend and exchanged pleasantries with a fellow walking down the hill. His words rang clear, "Oye, te doy consejo, si continuas arriba del cerro, te van a robar". It´s English equivalent being, "Hey, I´ll give you some advice, if you continue up the hill, you´re gonna´ get robbed". He proceeded to tell me about another young kid that was urban hiking in the same place about a week or so before. Not sure if he was Chilean or a foreigner, or many other details at all really, except for that he had his backpack, wallet and cell phone all stolen from him in broad daylight. Thankfully I got to learn this lesson the easy way that day. I thanked the gentleman for his advice and stopped my progress up the hill, stood there for a minute or so and turned around. About 3/4 of the way to the bottom of Cerro Loma, I noticed some smoke emanating from a short distance to my right, probably about 150 yards or so as the crow flies. Immediately, my mind jumped to the possibility of a house fire. Sure enough, following the dark black smoke down to its source, I could see wild flames sprouting from somewhere behind a closely grouped bank of houses. Construction workers came out of their gated project right across the street, microbus drivers stopped on their respective sides of the narrow inclined street, and pedestrians all stopped to watch the blaze. Shortly after I stopped to watch the flames, volunteer fire engines came careening up the road, one after another, with horns and sirens audibly marking their arrival. Sometimes, the microbus drivers would gawk so long that traffic was backed up 6 to 8 cars deep. I experienced frusturation watching them press pause on their respective tasks at hand, especially when a fire engine would be one of the automobiles halted in line. Horns, swear words or shaking fists didn`t seem to have any effect on the drivers` thick skulls.

The next day, I was walking down the street past a little news stand and saw the foto of the tragedy from the day before. With the accompanying headline, "Horror en Cerro Loma", I bought the periodical for a mere $200 pesos, or about $0.45 cents. It turned out that a total of 3 houses burned that day from grease that ignited in the kitchen. Two bomberos, or, firefighters received minor injuries and were rushed to the hospital, and one or more bloggers got a terrible, non-fiction story to spread to the rest of the world.

I have a couple "good" fire stories from my youth that might apply here. When I was super young and my Pops was still living in Kendrick, Idaho and Ma had already moved into Clarkston, a neighbor boy was playing with bottle rocketsand started a brush fire. Luckily, Pops was right there with his shovel and easily put out the fire. Another time when I was quite a bit older living in the house on Grandview Drive, a good friend Nathan, Pops and I were lighting off fireworks out front. See, I`m glad I can look back on this now and laugh, but it`s generally an unusual choice to light the fuse on a firework whose function you have absolutely no idea. this one in particular was a high-powered "bee" which  took off-a-buzzing a good 18-20 feet and landed in the pasture behind our backyard. The dry weeds instantly ignited and I can vividly remember Pops saying, "Uh oh, that`s gonna be trouble". He ran inside, grabbed the phone and the firefighters came out and extinguished the burn. After the flames had been put out, Nathan`s question seemed so odd, "When you called 911, did they ask how may I help you?" Another time when John, Ma and I were living out on Alpowa Creek Road, we returned from a vacation only to find 360 degrees around our house, high up on the hill, had been completely charred. Thankfully, the green lawn and the brick house were left completely unscathed. My most recent bout with fire happened at our house on Cherry Street, that is now called "River Canyon Drive", or some other ridiculous monstrosity. An immense grass fire that had started somewhere up Asotin Creek was being fueled by intense winds and a new subdivision was currently being put in. Hence the reason for the renaming of our simple and wonderful Cherry Street. The flames came dangerously close to the framed walls and roofs that composed the skeletons of the houses to be. This burn somehow snaked around the subdivision, (had they remembered to pay off the fire gods too?) and wound its way to the draw in between our neighbor`s and our houses. This was the closest I`ve ever been to being on the front lines of fighting fire. In the evening, when the sun was hanging low in the sky, I hopped on the 4-wheeler with my boots, gloves, a shovel and a multi-gallon spray tank filled with water to offer my help. Go figure that they refused the assistance of a sober, able-bodied, albeit unexperienced young-in but accepted the help of a much older, yet experienced neighbor driving his 4-wheeler with one hand and toting a can of Keystone Light in the other. I speculate that it wasn`t the first can of piss-water that he had made his way through that day. But, when the fire was threatening out house, I did get to climb up onto the roof of the shop, spraying the area around our property with water. Figured I earned my keep for the day even if the "official" firefighters didn`t think I was worth much...

All for now, this is Elvagabundonumerouno signing out. Goodnight tv and radio land.