Statecraft Informer

Turns out yesterday’s power/utility outage wasn’t caused by high winds and rain, per se´ (always makes me think of Per-cy Faith), but instead by one particularly vulnerable tree.

Our house is situated in the middle of a steep hill, which dead ends at the base of a bigger hill beyond. When you reach our house, and the rest on our side of the street, a beautifully undeveloped, well-treed hillside rises up and over to join other natural slopes.

Ours is the last yard to enjoy both level and sloping ground. It is great for three dogs who revel in a regular game of “mountain” ball.

The backyard is dotted with about two dozen large pines, and a scattering of deciduous species as well.

Our closest green neighbors, a Ponderosa and a Red Pine, grow together about 15 feet from the house, rising to near full height, and provide a canopy over the rear deck and lower patio.

Up until about 3:30 AM yesterday, ours was one of only two properties on this side of the street with old growth pines living so close to the house, the rest having cleared the nearest 30 to 50 feet of their rear yards years ago.

We are now alone.

The 70 foot Ponderosa Pine which once stood about 10 feet from the rear corner of the last house on our side of the block, now rests inside the rear corner, and front corner for that matter, of that unfortunate house.

When it fell, it also brought a number of utility lines down with it, hence the technical difficulties.

As luck would have it, the residents of said house were all away on vacation, and no one was injured. The word vacation has taken on a whole new meaning for them, however, and repairing that squeaky patio door is now a non-issue.

Although my neighbors were away, this is by no means a forest, so there were plenty of people around to hear when the tree fell. Even at 3:30 in the morning.

Some folks farther from the doomed tree than I claimed to have been awakened by the “boom,” or in one case, “crash-bang-boom.” I continued to check the inside of my eyelids for cracks in blissful silence.

As far as I know, if roused, no one on the block called anyone, or went to check on the home’s occupants. Perhaps nearer neighbors new of their absence. Perhaps others slept deeply as I had.

Turns out it was PG&E (the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, also known to some callous reprobates as PiGgiE) which raced to the scene, due to their own inner alarm systems, and lit up the street from top to bottom, in order to find out why all the lights on the street had gone out, top to bottom.

It was also they who notified the reveling, absent homeowners of their good/bad luck.

Upon hearing the news, I was immediately grateful it had not happened to me.

Oh, I did “feel” for the neighbors I don’t really know, and was happy no one was hurt, but I continued to think, “Glad it wasn’t my house.”

Aside from Philosophy 101, and cocktail parties in wee hours, I suppose trees falling in lonely forests are of little interest.

But what of trees in yards down my own thoroughly inhabited street?

Unless their rebuilding designs are a break from the traditional California boxes around here, there is nothing abstract about a massive tree in your living room. My neighbors, whose names I cannot recall, will be living with the consequences for a while.

Perhaps some of their more immediate neighbors will lend assistance of some kind. Perhaps not. The whole thing got me wondering.

Thirty years ago, with the wind at my back, I could probably hit their house with a rock. Yet, today, I don’t know the names of the folks who live there or anything about them.

I don’t think it’s because I don’t care, or that my neighbor’s plight is an abstraction to me. I’m not a “bad person.”

Maybe it’s that I just don’t care enough.

Growing up I knew nearly every single person on my street by name, and even a whole bunch of folks around the corner and down the block, too.

At one time or another (I was a young entrepreneur, after all), I believe I spoke to them all. Even Mr. Kaplan, who was not at all well-liked. They each had a story to tell, and to some degree, we all felt a part of each other’s stories.

I’ve lived a lot of places in a bunch of states since then, and I swear the further away I move from that place in time, the further apart I have moved from my neighbors, whoever they’ve been.

The world is getting smaller, and so it seems, is the world around me.

Or is it within me?

When did the abstract world become a reality and the real world an abstraction?

I’m sure if I take the time I can find the answers hiding somewhere here inside of me. I mean, what good is history if you can’t learn from it, right?

In the meantime, maybe I’ll walk up the hill tomorrow and see if there’s anything I can do to help.