Ascending into Paradise

The dictionary defines Paradise as a place of extreme beauty, delight, or happiness. To many people that was exactly what Paradise was and still is to them.

Memories of Home

When you were in Paradise you were amongst nature. You were one with the world. You weren't surrounded by the ocean or movie stars, like most people think when you say you're from California, but you were surrounded by the most beautiful lake one could set their eyes on with countless friends and acquaintances that were quick to know your name. They knew you like family, whether you were family or not.

I moved to Paradise on February 2, 1995. I had never seen a place that had trees that literally reached the sky. I remember watching my dad fixing the kitchen. There was chicken wire behind the wall. I only recall that because I said, "Dad, what's chicken wire?"

He said, "You use it to make houses for chickens." It was built in 1962 I would later find out.

The coolest thing at the time was the fireplace—right in the living room! It had the most beautiful deck that could seat at least 40 people! It was where we would host our birthday parties or family BBQs. If there were too many people we would just send them down the stairs to the gazebo, that's where dad would give me 90 percent of my haircuts. (Bowl haircuts were in style in the 90s, right?)

Time moved on and I helped dad build the pond in the front. I also worked hard planting the flowers that were in the driveway where the family cat liked to sleep. Later on I watched as he and his friends put in the sprinkler system to water the yard.

Sitting back now I realized dad did a lot of work on that house in the first couple of years and I being the oldest, had to help because, well I was the oldest!

The driveway would fill up with leaves every fall and that was a pain! Every day until Christmas it felt like I was outside raking leaves and pine needles with my dad removing brush and what not. Back then it was work. Today I would do it in a heartbeat!

I went to school at Ponderosa Elementary, where I met many of the people who I still know to this day.

My favorite things from those years were picking Mulberry leaves and feeding them to my silkworms, or the time we built a solar cooker and cooked food out on the blacktop as the dragon flies flew around the field in the warm, but dry, Butte County air. I still wonder if there are flakes of Fool's Gold out there?

Junior High brought some fun years for me at Paradise Intermediate School. I would sneak off the campus after the bus dropped me off and would stealthily go to Dolly-'O' donuts and get me a bear claw and a carton of milk. That is a great excuse for truancy, but I always came back before the first bell. That was where I first got into writing, my seventh and eighth grade year. You know what was awesome about those years? We were so close to the public swimming pool that we got to go there for P.E. in the summer!

High school... well there was that. In high school, I was known as the one who would walk the halls as "Elvis Presley." I didn't do it all the time, though it was really what I was known for. I was a bit of a rebel in my own way. Didn't really fit in, but at the same time, I did. I was honored that my name and the words "Elvis Lives" were sketched on a brick that was placed on the new high school track (NEW as of my graduating year 2005): Home of the PHS Bobcats.

Thousands of Miles Away

I moved away to the middle of the United States the day after graduation, starting a new life with my girlfriend who later became my wife. We have two beautiful daughters who have the most beautiful hearts. The last time I got to see Paradise was the summer of 2008. We took our firstborn to meet the family at the age of 8 months old. I was ready to visit my family and see my childhood home after 10 years of being away and I was making plans to do so.

Little did I know, November 8, 2018 would take almost all of that away from me. I live in Arkansas now, but I communicate daily with my friends and family in California.

We are two hours ahead. "You live in the Future," an old classmate told me the other day.

(8:30 AM CST/6:30 AM PST) I was getting ready for work when one of my fire alarms went off. The battery had died and it was the day of inspections.

"Oh, great..." I thought. "What a day for the battery to die, the day of inspections."

I sent my wife to get new batteries for all three of my alarms working or not.

I sent a text to one of my childhood friends who still lives in Paradise.

"You know my battery was dead in my fire alarm?" they sent me a message back.

"Looks like there is a fire here," and a smoke-covered sky filled the air in the picture she sent.

I got to work and I texted them back, "Yes, there's a fire in the canyon in Pulgas." I would later find out it was on Camp Creek Road, only about 40 minutes away from Paradise.

As I followed the updates on the fire I saw my dad was in the evacuation zone.

(11:20 AM CST/9:20 AM PST) "Hey Dad, did you get evacuated?"

As I waited for a response, my eyes didn't leave the phone and that was a bad idea. The post started coming.

Countless people praying to God that they would make it out before the fire consumed them. Parents asking their children, "Are you okay? Please tell me you are okay." The videos of the fires closing in around them in town. A town not unfamiliar, a town I called home, Paradise, California.

(1:00 AM CST/11:00 PM PST) "Yes," the reply finally came back.

I replied, "Are you far enough away or still in town?"

"We are OK. We are in Chico." (Chico was a little under half an hour away.)

That was the longest wait I ever had to endure. I was beyond happy, my family made it and that is something that can't be replaced. All our thoughts still remained though on the unknown. What about our beautiful town? I had already watched some of it go up in flames... dad later would tell me that when they were leaving, ashes were already falling from the sky. Cars were already catching fire and people were leaving their cars in the middle of the roads.

Paradise Lost

It was days later. I would find out that our house of 23 years was gone. Nothing left standing, but the chimney. Gone along with 95 percent of the rest of the town. I went to Facebook the other day and tried to write something. What do you say to your friends and family during a loss? Words don't do justice or bring things back at a time like this. Media had already broadcasted it to the world, a number rising daily of the missing, the deceased. I could only put it in simplest of terms. I went and made a quote complete with a picture of the beautiful trees of Paradise, much like the runs that surrounded our homes, schools, churches, and businesses.

"The world may have been told of Paradise, but I was blessed to have dwelled there," and that's how I still feel.