Infernos and whirlwinds - Part One; Fire

I lied yesterday.  Actually I should have saved the title "Liar, liar pants on fire" for this post.  No, it's not about lying, it's about fire.  Oh, and tornadoes.  The lie is that I said I wasn't afraid of too much more than the dark, yet I am dreadfully afraid of burning and gale force winds.  I do not, however, consider either of these to be irrational of invalid fears, having actually lived through one major fire and several near misses with tornadoes.


When I was five years old, I lived for awhile in the American Children's Home in Miami, Florida. It was not too long after my father had made his final bow out of our lives (though he did show up for a curtain call or two later at odd times).  My oldest brother, Harry, revised his birth certificate (he was 15 and fixed it to indicate he was 16, though I'm not sure how you turn 1938 into 1937 without it looking altered) and convinced my mother to sign for him to join the Air Force.  Glenn and Joe were immediately sent to the Children's Home, but at that time there was a restriction allowing only children already enrolled in school to be residents.  So, my sisters and I were farmed out to foster homes; yes that is plural.  We did not get placed together and often they were separated in spite of the fact they are identical twins.  I don't remember a lot about these placements, but apparently I was Hell on wheels because I went through foster homes as if there was no tomorrow.  I guess Social Services finally ran out of families who would accept me, so they talked the board of directors at the Home into taking me in even though I was not school age yet.  Once I was placed with my brothers, I became a perfect little angel.  If you believe that, you haven't been paying attention.  However, I did settle down and become much easier to control.  The Home had a large main building housing all the common rooms (kitchen, dining, den) on the ground floor, and the female sleeping quarters on the second floor.  There was a totally separate, newer building that had been built specifically for use as male sleeping quarters.


I didn't have a lot of worldly possessions at this point in my life, but I had three things I treasured:  a cotton stuffed doll with a plastic face, a strand of brightly colored glass beads, and a white leather Bible.  One morning at about 2:00 AM, the fire alarm sounded in the main building where the girls were housed.  Of course, we all jumped up and started scrambling around in total chaos (fire drills are one thing; real fires in the middle of the night are completely different).  The house had a main stairway in the middle of the structure, leading from the upstairs areas to a hallway on the ground floor.  There was also a concrete stairway on the exterior of the building leading directly to the outside.  Most of the girls got out quickly (I don't know which stairway they used), but I was still upstairs because I had been trying to find my prized possessions and another little girl was with me (I cannot for the life of me remember her name).  We started to go down the stairs in the center of the house, but the Administrator was at the bottom of the stairs, waving her arms and saying, "No, no, go to the outside stairs.  The fire is down here."  So we ran to the other stairway, where we found one of the housemothers at the bottom of the stairs, waving her arms and saying, "No, no, go to the inside stairs.  The fire is down here."  So we went back to the inside stairway and got the same message as before.  We went back and forth between those two stairways at least four times before it occurred to me the fire couldn't be too close or neither of those women would still be standing there.  Finally, I just grabbed the other little girl and raced down the stairs in the middle of the house and out the front door.  I cannot even begin to tell you how petrified I was.  I was sure we were gonna burn to death in that stupid building because no one would let us go down any of the stairs to get out.


Once we were safely out, we were directed away from the burning building.  I sat down on the porch steps at one of the houses a little way down the street.  Everyone in the neighborhood was awake and outside watching the fire.  The boys dormitory was not burning, but all the firetrucks and sirens and pandemonium had awakened the boys and they were all outside watching (and like all little boys, enjoying).  My brothers told me there were some sparks coming out of the electrical sockets in their building, but nothing caught fire.  It was not a particularly cold night but as I sat on the stoop next door my teeth were chattering uncontrollably.  One of the firemen came over, wrapped me in a blanket and asked if there was anything special in the house I would like for them to try to save.  I thought he was the nicest man in the world.  I told him about my doll and my beads and my Bible.  A little while later he came back and gave me my Bible.  He explained that the cloth doll had not burned completely but the plastic face had melted and the glass beads had all exploded because of the extreme heat.  The Bible was saved but the white leather now had a scorch mark around the edges on the back cover.  I still have that Bible.  The white leather has yellowed over the years, but the scorched area is still clearly visible.


Eventually the fire was put out and we were all herded into the boy's dorm.  Everyone had to double up for the rest of the night.  The main building was a total loss and since it housed all the common areas, the Home was unable to continue operating at that location.  The next day Social Services had a major emergency trying to find foster homes for all of us -- girls and boys.  Apparently, they remembered me, because though we had to move around a lot, they made absolutely certain I was always housed with one of my brothers.  After a few months, the State found another location that was well equipped and large enough to contain all of us homeless urchins.  We moved to the new American Children's Home and all of us were domiciled in one building along with all the common areas.


We stayed there long enough for me to start school.  Actually, I completed first grade and had begun second grade by the time my mother was forced to bring us all back home.  She wasn't really financially ready to support five kids on her own yet, but because my sisters were such cute little lasses, the foster homes where they were living wanted to adopt them.  Yes, once again that is plural.  The State of Florida was going to allow my identical twin sisters to be adopted by two different families.  They informed my mother the adoptions would be approved unless she was able to bring all of her children home to live with her.  So, we moved to The Projects.  Sometimes ya just have to woman up and do what ya gotta do, and that's what my mom did, because there was no way in Hell she was gonna let her babies be separated and grow up in two different families.


I am still terrified of fire.  I was a smoker for many years, but I never once fell asleep with a lit cigarette or set a trash can on fire by emptying a hot ashtray.  I was too afraid of the consequences.  Sometime later maybe I'll tell the stories about our experiences with Bud and his pyromania (not really, but he sure does enjoy a good fire).  After the fire at the Children's Home, I had nightmares about being trapped in burning buildings for awhile.  They eventually went away, and I haven't had dreams about fires in a very long time.  I do, however, dream about tornadoes on a disturbingly regular basis and that is what I will write about tomorrow.