In my last newsletter I metioned person of the week. This week my person is my aunt Rocky. I want to say thank you to Mom, Grandpa Richard, and Aunt Lisa for the help on this article.

Rocky was born on May 7, 1976 and is 26 years old. She has been married for 8 years to my uncle Ryan. They have a baby boy named Rowan and he is almost nine months. They live in Davis, Ca where she works as a librarian in a library in DQ University. The last time I checked Uncle Ryan had a part time job in the library filling in for Rocky when she was busy with Rowan.

Mom’s memories A fond memory of mom’s was when they were at the pizza parlor. Back then, they used to give out little football helmets with the pizza. Mom remembers seeing Aunt Rocky drinking water out of the helmet, when mom asked where she got the water Rocky replied, "Out of the toilet, I couldn’t reach the sink". She was around 2 or 3 years old.

When mom was 7 and Rocky was 2 Mom thought Rocky was a big brat. Mom also remembers when Rocky was mad she would yell, "You stinker! You're not my sister anymore!". Mom also remembers her and Aunt Lisa rolling Rocky around in a laundry hamper. Once, they hit her head on a corner and it cut her, Mom and Lisa were scared because it bled a lot. Mom also said she was a social butterfly in high school.

Grandpa’s memories Grandpa says that Aunt Rocky used to sleep a lot and was always late for school. She wore leg braces when she was a baby (so did mom I found out) and he remembers Mom and Lisa having to dress her in the car on the way to pre-school.

Her room was always messy and she would dump all her clean and dirty clothes on the floor and would smell them to tell if they were clean or dirty. This went on all through high school.

When ever they went to the pizza parlor she would dance around to the music on the juke box. Another memory of grandpa’s is when she decided to start recycling news papers, she had stacks and stacks of paper and she wouldn't let anyone throw them away. She was disappointed because she only got only 50 cents.

Lisa’s memories When Rocky was a little she used talk a lot and she would try to say a lot so she stammered. Lisa said Rocky would annoy Grandpa by taking really long baths everynight (they only had 1 bathroom).When they did laundry it would cost a lot of money (for the apartment laundrymat) for Rocky’s clothes because she would throw all the clothes on the floor, dirty or clean and they would get mixed up.

She was always trying new things and in a lot of clubs. She was also very cheerful. When she was little she wanted to go to school really bad because Mom and Lisa were. A memory of Lisa’s is when she was in 8th and Rocky was in Kintergarden. It was around Christmas and Rocky’s class went to sing for the 8th grade class. Rocky was talking to the teacher and all of the sudden Rocky said "That’s my sister!" Lisa was embarassed.

By the way, the link for Stupid.com (found on the house page) was given to my mom by Aunt Rocky who showed it to me. Make sure you check it out!

WEEKLY POLL

This weeks pool is about which planet rules your Zodiac sign. The signs and planets are as follows: Tarus and Libra by Venus, Virgo and Gemini by Mercury, Aries by Mars, Cancer by the Moon, Leo by the sun, Scorpio by Pluto, Sagittarus by Jupiter, Capricorn by Saturn, Aquarius by Uranus, and Pisces by Neptune. By the way Mom and Paul are ruled by Pluto, Phillip by Venus, and I am ruled by Saturn.

Phillip The Fireman-Part 4

On July 4th Phillip was called to cover the Piedra Station (once again he was working on the fence) around 5:00 in the evening. They were at the station for about an hour when they got a call to go to Pine Flat lake. The dispatcher said it was code 3, level 1 staging. Code 3 means lights and sirens and level 1 mens they can only go on scence when the sheriff/police says so.

They drove up there and waited where they could not be seen for 20-30 minutes It turned out two drunk guys got into a fight. One man had head butted the other and bit him a couple of times. They were sent back and Roy Oken said, "I’ll bet five bucks we get sent back for a fire."

After they got there they were called back for a fire at Sycamore Creek in the Sierra National Forest. It was on the edge of the road and they fought the fire on the left flank. Left flank means the left side. They were up at the head and the fire was going downhill. They did a down hill hose lay which is the opposite of the uphill hose lay Phillip did at his training exercise last month. At one point they had to crawl through the bushes to put down hose.

Also, one guy from Squaw Valley broke his wrist. He was sent back to get something, went the wrong way and fell off a small ledge. Because they could not carry him up, they carried him down to the river and took a boat to the marina where an ambulance was waiting. Phillip got back to the station and then back home at 2:30am. He didn’t go to work that day.

While Phillip was getting ready to finish our fence, there was a fire in Chonumni Park across the street from the post office (about five miles from home). A family were camping by the river in an area that was not designated for camping. They started a campfire and while they were napping or something the fire got out of hand. The people ran away and reported the fire. Later on a guy called back to say that he was responsible. He is going to be heavily fined.

There was a fire investigator out there and they even had a helicopter out I think looking for the people who did it.

Phillp’s job at the fire was to take a red line hose and cool down the hot spots.

Phillip was getting ready to go to the hardware store for some stuff for the fence. He got called to cover the Piedra station about 4 pm. At 5:30 pm, I walked over to the fire station to deliver some dinner. There were a lot of people there. At about 8 pm Phillip got home.

Around 10:15pm he got called to an accident. They were needed to help a helicopter land. The helicopter had to leave though and go to a more serious accident. An ambulance took care of everything. Phillip got home around 11:00 pm and turned his pager off!

Pager still off, we all went to Kings Canyon National Park for the day. When we got home Phillip started working on the fence but quit when he remember he still needed stuff from the hardware store.

Fire burns 50 acres A fire near the foothill community of Piedra scorched 50 acres of brush Monday afternoon, but firefighters managed to protect six structures The 3:15 p.m. fire was caused by a man using a grinder. He was cited. The fire was expected to be contained early today, said Karen Guillemin, spokeswoman for the state Department of Forestry and Fresno County Fire Department --Fresno Bee July 9th

Phillip was on his way home from work. He was going to stop at the hardware store for the fence stuff when he got paged. He called home and told us he was going to be late.

Mom looked out the kitchen window and saw lots of smoke. At the same time we could hear sirens and planes and helicopters. Mom went outside to see was was going on. She hiked a little way along the river and there she could see flames on the hill and planes dumping water. She came home, grabbed the camera, put Paul in the back pack and we all went out to watch. As we stood at the river bank a helicopter came down with a hose to fill up it’s tank. It was really close! It was so loud and windy that we thought it would scare Paul. He wasn’t though. While it filled up with water we got sprayed. It felt so good! Mom got some pictures.

When we got back home we saw that the police had blocked off the road right in front of our house. They were not letting cars down the road. The helicopter kept coming back for more water and it kept flying right over the top of the house so low that mom could see the numbers in it (794). The windows shook. This went on until 7 or 8 pm. The road stayed blocked off until 9 or 10 pm when Phillip got home.

Phillip was very disappointed. He was not able to work with his company. Instead he stayed with a water tender truck and helped out the water tender.

Below are a few of the many pictures Mom was able to take. Each picture was taken from the river at the back of the house or in most cases from the front or back yards. The first picture is of the small portion of the fence that will not get finished until fire season is over.

ODDS-N-ENDS Issue #4

Richenda

WEEKLY POLL

Phillip The Fireman-Part 4

Yum!!! Recipes!!!