The Crestline Character This installment of A Closer Look is about people. I was more fortunate than most, because of my press pass, to have gone up and down the mountain pretty much at will during the evacuation. Not so fortunate were Davey Porter and Laura Patten of the Crestline Courier-News and Mountain News, who both lost their homes in the fire that swept through Cedar Glen. I wish them and anyone else who lost so much all the best, and a swift recovery to bigger and better things. On Saturday, the day before everyone started returning to our town, I ate lunch down in the South Beach parking lot at the lake. I did that so I could just enjoy looking at our town, which largely came through a disastrous fire intact. Sitting there, something came to me. People are always saying that the character of this town comes from the lake or the trees or the San Moritz and things like that. They’re wrong. After being in this ghost town with a few holdouts for a week I realized that the character of this town really comes from the characters who live in it. A lot of the people I talk with and see every day were gone, and without them, this just might as well be any other place. Take Roland Mainer, for example. You might not know his name, but you know whom I’m talking about. You often see Roland standing in front of the post office or Goodwin’s selling his handmade crafts. Many times you will also see him raising money for an unfortunate local family that has suffered a personal tragedy. I’m sorry to say he’s going to have his hands full when he gets back. His brother, James, who is another recognizable face in the town, spent a week in Crestline wondering what had become of his brother during the evacuation. He checked evacuation centers and friends, and nobody knew his whereabouts. It wasn’t until a week after the evacuation that he found out that Roland had been staying with the family of another Crestline resident in Redondo Beach. James told me that he was greatly relieved to know that his brother had been safe and sound at the beach for eight days, but he said, “When he gets back home, I’m going to wring his neck.” Have you ever seen the post office parking lot completely deserted on Sunday at noon? I have, and I’m telling you now that I’ll never use those curse words again under my breath when I try to jockey for a place in the parking lot again on the weekend. I’ll just patiently wait for the traffic to clear and sit there like Winnie the Pooh and just mindlessly hum some soothing melody to myself. Susan Rogers is another character in town. Although she has been a resident less than two years, she volunteers for just about anything you can volunteer for in Crestline. She was in touch with me at home by phone for any news during the last few days of the evacuation, which she passed on to quite a few Crestline residents. When I told her the subject of my column for the week, she said loudly, “Man, I just love this town!” Another person who loves this town and makes up part of its character is Brenda Meyer, a business owner and president of the Chamber of Commerce. It’s her job to stick up for the businesses in this town, and she takes it seriously. If you come to a meeting in our town that features representatives of any agency that—through its work or its regulations—is negatively affecting business in Crestline, you’ll find Brenda sitting in the middle of the audience, quietly listening. Just when the agency representatives are breathing a big sigh of relief, pushing back from the table, thinking, “that wasn’t so bad,” and are looking forward to a brisk walk out the door with their hides intact, Brenda slowly raises her hand. Calmly, quietly and respectfully, she begins asking the hard questions that haven’t yet been asked. By the time she asks the questions, the agency representatives realize that this is not just a number of questions that, “we’ll get back to you on.” It’s a to-do list that they need to report real progress on the next time they come back to Crestline. And it’s part of the character of Crestline. Have you ever waited in a longer line at Goodwin’s because you have a favorite checker or two? It might be because the checker smiles a lot, or perhaps she’s talkative, or maybe the checker doesn’t talk at all and just whisks you through the line. Perhaps she just reminds you of your cousin. Whatever, it’s part of the character of Crestline for you personally. Later on the day before the people started coming back I saw Dave Holden, pastor of Lake Gregory Community Church. If you spend a while with Dave, it’s like being with a high-spirited, high school cheerleader (minus the short skirt and the pom-poms). Now I’m getting personal. However, Dave and I have something very personal in common—years ago, before I bought my house, he once lived in it. He didn’t know that until I told him when I saw him last Saturday in the 7-11 parking lot. He said, “Yeah, that is a beautiful house.” It made me feel good that he could still say that in the present tense. So after this is over, we’ll do lunch and maybe I’ll show him what we’ve done with the place. There is a woman who I see nearly every day passing by me on the road. I don’t know her name and I don’t recall which one of us started waving first, but every time her gold Toyota passes my dark green Trooper, we both smile and wave like we’re old friends. I think I’ve only seen her outside of her truck once, and I can’t be sure, because I only know what her face, shoulders and right hand look like. It’s just part of the character of Crestline for me personally. I’ve only mentioned a few people, but I know I speak the few hundred of us who stayed up here when I say that it won’t be Crestline until all 9,000 or so of you get back up here and put the character back in Crestline. I got a great treat on Sunday when a woman, an 11-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy walked back into this collection of wallboard, studs, pipes, concrete and tile, and made it something that I can start calling a home again. |
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