Smoking ashes

Older but goodie, especially since today is a RED FLAG DAY!

A Burning Question about smoking ashes
By Anne Wycoff
We’ve all heard the saying, "One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure," but one mans garbage shouldn’t be another man or woman’s phlegm. This subject of phlegm came up, so to speak the other day when I attempted a run at Bille Park. I couldn’t even get out of my car. The smoke from neighboring bonfires was so thick, it engulfed the grass area and the would-be track. Since there was a slight breeze, the smoke wafted a bit however, since the bonfires continued to burn, a cloud continued to invade my potential running area and threatened to suck up oxygen anyone(including children and adults in the playground) were using.

Since I am fond of breathing and running I took my endeavor to the high school track and accompanied several other runners. After my first mile, bilows of bonfire smoke invaded the track and the song, Nowhere To Run To by Michael McDonald, kept playing into my oxygen-deprived brain. I was starting to really get choked up, nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide (the track became blurred), got nowhere to run to baby, (my eyes started to itch), it’s not love I’m running from, it’s the heartaches I know will come (my chest started to hurt), cause I know you’re no good for me,(I started to cough), but you’ve become a part of me. It was at this point, I realized that I was the only fool trying to run in the ominous cloud and I was forced to leave and go to the dulldroms to finish out my run on the gym treadmill.

The arsonists (I mean old men) have nothing better to do than to rake their yards and put what their poor eyesights entail to be rubbish in large piles and lighting up. I know it’s old guys, I’ve seen them, we have three up in our neck of the woods. Every Saturday, they get up at four, rake their yards or worse, use the weed blower and make a huge bonfire. After their nap, they rake and blow more rubbish(one neighborhood old fart actually has his friends drop their garbage to burn-who knows what he’s burning?).

I figure it’s their way of looking productive. This is the same MO my husband uses while cleaning the kitchen: He moves the dishes around, stacking them neatly on one side of the sink. He even goes to the trouble of putting all the silver ware into a large cup and filling it with water. There! He has cleaned the kitchen!

These old coots are doing the exact same thing, but not only are they contributing to a useless and meaningless task that could, I might add be completed during a drizzle or even rainy day, they are also contributing to our greenhouse affect. Now, don’t get me wrong,

I am not some yahoo who thinks we need to chain ourselves up to trees and collect benefits (this sounds like something I may have seen in a play ;0), Nope, I am just a running nerd, who would love to breath during my run and not cough up something that looks like road kill.

Perhaps I am turning into a Don Quixote of sorts? I’ve had fantasies of running all over town, toting a large pump full of water and screaming, "Phlegm be gone!" while I saturate each bonfire. I also thought about drinking six gallons of water and urinating on each bonfire. I’d bravely outrun the old men in their boxers, black knee socks and orthopedic sandals as they screamed, rakes raised, "Don’t poke her until you see the white of her ass!" This last fantasy however, reminded of another painful encounter with the new waxing sensation and it was quickly cast aside.

Instead I confronted one my "old guys" while he proudly stood over his creation of soot and smolder and a huge cloud matched his huge prideful grin as I approached, "Nice day, isn’t it?" He stood like Pa Kettle, rake cuddled under his gloved hands. "It would be nice if you weren’t killing us off with this smoke, why do you do all that? That’s screwed up man, just screwed up!"
"It’s my yard and I’ll do what I want, besides, I have a permit."
He pulled up his shorts and held his head high. It was all I could do to not drop my pants and relieve myself of my third cup of coffee.

The city of Chico has an ordinance of no burning allowed, not even if you go to the trouble of obtaining a permit. Instead, the officials decided that Chico should become like most cities in California; each household should have a garbage, rubbish and recycle container. Why haven’t the towns of Paradise and Magalia adopted this policy? If you said money you are incorrect-and you are, I might ad, the missing link. Yes, initially it would cost the county (In Magalia county, Paradise, city) some money. But it’s going to cost them more with all the asthma, allergy and pulmonary problems the bonfires of the cranky’s is going to cost. Taking into consideration too, the fact that most these cranky concoctionists of the foul don’t supervise their little sparks, we are talking increased chances of a residential and potential wild fire. In addition to all this hullabaloo, the Federal Clean Air Act alone should make some Paradisian and Magalian officials shake in their boots or sandals.

We might, if we are lucky, receive almost three weeks of rain for the remainder of our really wet season.

My burning questions are these, where there is smoke, isn't there usually a fire?
And,
why is my ash smoking?

Love,
annabanana