Firestarters, Blinking Lights, and T-Shirt Weather

It seems that children everywhere have decided that playing with matches and lighters is the new the national pastime. Now Nome is no exception.

The wildfires in Southern California started by a ten year old, and last year in Hooper Bay, Alaska some village children were playing with fire and ended up burning half the village down. These situations are so incredibly devastating for all involved. The fires will just hare through cities and villages devouring everything in their path. Where is Smokey the Bear?

In Nome there was one victim. There was a fire that broke out this past Tuesday morning and three men were inside. One did not make it out. This apparently was caused by children playing with a lighter in the garage.

The children will more than likely not be prosecuted, and I am not saying that they should be. They do not necessarily understand how their actions can result in mass destruction and even death. That is not something taught between dodge ball and addition.

When the fire broke out power to most, if not all of Nome, was cut off so the firefighters would not have to encounter live wires on top of the out of control blaze. It took crews a few hours to douse the flames, and even when it was out to the eye, hot spots continued so it was watched and baby sat, much like those kids should have been with the lighter. Children cannot be watched every moment, but something should be done, implement a program, have the parents attend a fire safety instruction course, something.

I suppose I am a little optimistic. I hope people prove me wrong.

It was not the first time (and most certainly not the last) the electricity in Nome has disappeared. This is a common occurrence, and will increase with winter swiftly approaching. I have come to live with the blinking clocks around me. We have a few clocks around the house that run off battery so we have backups in case our main alarms fail. At first I would run around resetting my life, as it should be with steady lights with the correct time- or maybe a little fast so I could arrive to work in a timely fashion. However, that is no longer the case. I know where to look for the correct or at least approximate time. So I sleep in a room with a steady blink of 12 midnight, I could not stand that when I was in the Lower 48.

Crazy what you can become acclimated to in life. Just take it as it comes, I can thank my God for that. He is the one that keeps me chugging up here 102 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

The daily temperatures are between the mid-twenties and low thirties now. Last week we had a day where it reached 36 and my response was 'Man it warmed up, I do not need a jacket to run home'. Life is funny that way.

T-shirt weather? For the locals and natives, always.