The Los Angeles Fires

War!

The calamitous fires in Los Angeles match those of WWII.

I haven’t seen such fire storm destruction short of images of fire bombings of London, cities of Japan and Germany.

Parts of Los Angeles look like that, and I wonder how a family leaves their home, leaves everything behind with minutes or seconds to evacuate.

What do you take? How long do you pause to see what you will never see again?

Looking around, I see things that have been in my family longer than I. They have no value beyond being reminders.

Modest Southern California homes of the 1960’s are now valued in the millions. Streets and neighborhoods are in ruins. All lost — all.

TV news didn’t show any place I knew until video of the Will Rogers Ranch State Park offered before/after pictures.

The Rogers California ranch became a hunting and horse play playground for the famous of his day — Gable, Niven, Disney, Roach, Tracy, Devine, Karloff. He called it “The Polo Club.”

This space doesn’t allow a description of Will Rogers to generations who never heard of him.

He was of Cherokee descent and grew up on the family ranch in northeast Oklahoma before it was Oklahoma and still called the Oolograh Indian Territory.

Rogers was a working cowboy. He learned to toss three lassos at once; the first landing on a rider, the second around the horse’s neck and the third under the horse and around all four legs. Once you see that, you can’t unsee or forget it. There is a film of Rogers doing that at the museum.

The Rogers Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, is the most interesting museum I’ve ever seen.

“The Cherokee Kid” was a rope trick artist on the vaudeville circuit but became famous for his patter and witticisms while doing the tricks.

He was also a radio star, wrote books and was a humorist in the style of Mark Twain. He called Congress a “joke factory,” poked fun at presidents and gangsters. Rogers appeared in scores of movies.

His syndicated column and radio commentary were as down-home as he genuinely was. Sayings attributed to him are, ”I never met a man I didn’t like,” and “My people didn’t come over on the Mayflower, but we were there to meet the folks who did.”

Rogers and one-eyed pilot Wiley Post were on a flying trip in 1935 but crashed at Point Barrow, Alaska. Will Rogers was 55.

The beautiful California ranch house met a democratic end. The fires took the homes of the elite and common. joenphillips@yahoo.com