I've seen fire and I've seen rain

It was Christmas 1977. I'm pretty sure that it was a Christmas present someone gave to my parents. I can't remember who, if it was indeed a present then it had to have been from someone in our family.

A short three months later, it turned out to be a gift of life.

I still lived at home and my parents had guests that night that stayed very late. I think we went to bed around 1. Again, the exact details are a bit fuzzy.

At around 3 a.m. the Christmas gift screamed into the night, awakening me and my parents immediately. The precious gift, a simple lone smoke alarm was blasting away in the hall between the bedrooms. I can remember being jolted awake and running for the hallway. And I remember turning back to get my glasses as I was extremely nearsighted.

My father came running out of the bedroom in his not very tighty whities. My mother was rummaging around their bedroom. It was obvious immediately that the smoke alarm was not yelping in vain. There was smoke clearly visable at the top of the ceiling in the hall. My dad and I ran to the kitchen where the smoke got worse and I looked into the "new room" that my dad had added to our house several months before.

There, licking at the ceiling, were flames just above the wood burning stove. I remember standing there for a few seconds in a deer-in-the-headlights moment thinking, "This doesn't happen in my home, FIRE cannot happen in MY home."

Dad was running back and forth near the kitchen phone saying, "I can't see, I can't see." Only later did I realize he meant that being farsighted he could not see to dial the telephone. This was long before there was a 911.

I grabbed the phone and hit 0. Nothing, nada, zip. I realized later that was because dialing the operator did not immediately give you a ringing tone. All I could think of was that the fire must have burned through the phone lines.

In the meantime, Dad started to run the water in the kitchen and grabbed a coffee cup. He began to run back and forth between the kitchen and the new room throwing a cup of water one at a time on the flames. To be clear, while the flames looked like hell had erupted in the new room to me, they really were limited to just the ceiling and upper wall maybe 4 feet in either directly.

My mother, hearing the fire alarm and not thinking clearly (not that any of us were at this point), proceeded to hunt through their closet for her new robe. She's was notorious for "saving" Christmas presents like her new robe, one time saving one so long that she no longer fit into it. But in the panicked state we all were in, she logically thought she didn't want the firemen to see her in her old robe, so she's grabbing her new one and putting it on. She tossed her hair scarf that women wore to bed back then to keep their hairdo in place and never ever found it again. When she emerged from the bedroom, she did have enough wits about her to get dad a pan rather than a coffee cup.

My brother and his first wife lived in a trailer in our backyard at the time and I ran out of the house barefoot in an early Indiana March morning to try to use their phone since ours was obviously "burnt". I remember my toes squishing in several slightly frozen mud puddles in our driveway to bang on the trailer door.

It's hard to wrap your arms around a true emergency. Your mind does stupid things like saying, "OK, let's not scream and panic these people." I knocked semi-loud. No response. Louder. Louder. OK WHAT ARE YOU THINKING??? Wake these people UP. This is no time to be polite. I began to pound and yell FIRE!

His wife got up and let me in. Mark, being in the dazed state of sleep I had just been in, hears me and then goes to relieve himself first. OK, maybe you should have waited and aimed that toward the flames instead of wasting it in your bathroom.

I run to their phone and dial 0. Again, no response. I waited just a half a second longer and I hear, "Operator." I said, "I need the fire department." In the meantime, I see Mark finally realizing there is an emergency and he runs out of the trailer toward the house.

Just a couple seconds later and I hear someone on the phone say, "Greenwood Police Department." It was THEN that I nearly panicked. 'I NEED THE FIRE DEPARTMENT." What the heck was the police department doing on the phone?

The dispatcher c a l m l y says, "This IS the Fire Department." I told her our address and I can honestly say that I wasn't yet panicked all the way.

But.

Then I can hear my mother screaming from the house. The words and tone of my voice still rings in my ears even today. Upon hearing the screaming I said, "Hurry, PLEASE." I was begging. I hang up the phone and I run toward the house. I can see two people carrying someone out of the house. My first thought was that Dad had a heart attack and Mom and Mark were carrying him out of the house.

Nope. Apparently Mark had become fully awake by the time he reached the house and he saw the smoke that was beginning to billow in the kitchen ceiling. Mom and Dad were running around standing upright, not realizing how bad the smoke had gotten.

Upon seeing Mark bent down, the realization finally struck Mom. In a normal tone she said, "Mark, this house is on fire." "This house is on fire." "THIS HOUSE IS ON FIRE." She lost it. Began screaming it over and over. That was the screaming I heard when I was on the phone with the Police/Fire Department.

By the time I reached the back door, I saw Mark and Dad carrying Mom out. I held the door open while they carried her out and laid her down, still screaming in the gravel, dirty driveway. But she sure looked nice without the head scarf and in her yet-unused robe.

Mark and Dad were in a hurry to get back in the house and try to put out the fire, as stupid as that was. They go back into the house. Mom's still laying in the driveway. I go back in and I hear Dad, realizing the smoke is too thick yelling at Mark. "Let's go, get out of here." Mark was trying to throw more water on the fire. When he didn't move quickly enough, Dad used the voice that we were well familiar with as kids. "Mark, NOW, get out of here." We all turn to run out of the house, I'm sure well past the time it's smart to just get the hell out.

I remember Mom saying that Rebel, our dog was still in the basement.

Priorities.

This is the moment you put all your priorities in proper order. We are all out of the house. Does anything else matter? As much as I loved Rebel, I can clearly remember saying, "It doesn't matter, let it all burn"

Since I didn't see hear any emergency vehicles, I ran back to the trailer and called the operator again. She said they were on the way and I could hear them in the distant.

White River Township at that time had an all volunteer fire department. God Bless those guys. One of the guys knew my dad and where we lived. He said the minute he heard our address, he couldn't manage to get his belt fastened while being awakened out of a deep sleep and realizing his friends house was on fire.

I cannot imagine that someone volunteers or even gets paid to be slapped out of sleep and rushed into danger. It's a noble, noble career/calling. Thank God for people like that.

When we were sitting around my brother's kitchen table while the firemen entered our house, one of them walked into the trailer, gingerly carrying my purse, which I knew was in the same room as the fire. Rebel came running out unharmed, the firemen had let him out of the basement.

It was beginning to dawn on all of us that the fire had not destroyed our entire house, it had only burnt one wall of the new room. Of course the smoke damage was more extensive, but outside of the room that caught fire, the rest just needed a good cleaning. It wasn't until late that night when I happened to cross my legs that I saw the dirt was still caked on my feet from stepping into cold mud puddles.

We were lucky.

We were blessed.

Imagine what would have happened that very night if they had not gotten a smoke detector for that Christmas three months earlier. With all the smoke, I have no doubt we would have just died from smoke inhalation, not the fire.

Now that smoke detectors are virtually in every house, please remember to check the batteries. No one wants to regret something so simple that can be so important.