The Naked Truth About a month after the Old Fire I called my wife at work at the Forest Service station. “Shelby...Lee Reeder is on the phone,” the female ranger says. In the background is another female ranger yelling across the office so everybody can hear, “Oh you mean, NAKED LEE!?” It was a reference this column, Nov. 20, in which I wrote about trying to take a shower while the neighborhood above my house was burning. I had to keep running out to the driveway to make sure the smoke and flames were staying put as I packed up my computer equipment and then took a shower. Because I would be in the shower for about ten minutes and couldn’t see or hear what was going on outside, when the water was hot and I was ready to jump in, I took one last dash in the buff to the driveway to check the situation. Hey, I was just trying to make sure my butt was covered. Well, figuratively speaking, anyway. So I got a new nickname for a while. I was thinking about this last week because I put all of these columns up on the Internet, and I browsed through some of them. There were a few that I was tempted to edit a little—including the one that earned me that nickname. As a friend of mine, who is also a writer, said after I told her the ranger story, “Well, Lee, if you ask me, I wouldn’t have gone there.” And even though it’s almost a full year of me basically making fun of myself, and there are parts that make my face turn a little red knowing they’re now out there for the whole world to see, it wouldn’t be right to edit stuff out. Although I might change the title of the one that is called, “My Bottom Hurts.” The first week all of these were up online, I got an e-mail from a Crestline couple thanking us for putting them up, and saying they especially like the one called, “Giving it Up” from Dec. 11. In that column I talked about the generosity and kindness of the people in this town. It’s one of my favorites too. “We are sending a copy to our son in Idaho, since we are always bragging about this wonderful, giving, caring community that we live in,” they wrote. I would send it to my relatives, too, but even in this one, which was not humorous, I couldn’t resist poking fun at one of my little character flaws. But it wouldn’t be right to edit them, even after I had to blush when a checker in Goodwin’s yells across three check stands: “Hey Lee, aren’t you supposed to be wearing a trench coat in here!” I asked for it. On July 24 to be exact. So I guess I’m stuck with it. Doing this column is like writing a journal, except that I don’t get to shove it in my little hiding place under the bed where nobody can get to it. No, I just put it on the World Wide Web, of all places. Although this column is written from one person’s view, it’s not about me—it’s about a lot of people. People in Crestline can relate to many things that happen to other people in this town, like dealing with snow or power outages, interacting with our local animals, constantly working on a fixer-upper, or running out in your driveway without any clothes on. Okay, maybe not that. One thing about this collection is that it chronicles one of the most extraordinary years in the history of this town, and people are not likely to forget it. Let’s hope that it is THE most extraordinary year we ever see, and the rest are just kind of ho-hum, like I like them to be. I think you will all agree that we’ve had just about all the excitement we need around here. At the annual Community Recognition Banquet of the Rotary Club of Crestline-Lake Gregory last week, I walked around the room, and at nearly every table, including mine, people were talking about the same subject. You guessed it—what happened to them during the Old Fire. It’s something that binds everyone here together, and we don’t seem to tire of it. People always seem to want to hear someone’s Old Fire stories and then tell them their own. I just have an unfair advantage, because I got to write them all down in this newspaper, and now they’re up on the Web for everyone to see. I’m growing a beard now in the hopes that with my shaven face in the picture on the column, nobody will recognize me. Of course, it’s just like me to tell everybody that.
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