January 1989

I have been thinking of one Friday in January 1989.

When I was freshly out of college (the first time), I took a job in Rochester, NY working for a large company known for its photography products. I'm sure you can guess which company, or figure it out with a little research.

As I was driving home from work, I was listening to NPR (WXXI, in fact) and heard that there was a house fire in the Park Avenue part of town and a street was blocked. Hm. I lived in that part of town, and that's exactly where I was going. What street? Grainger Place. Uh, oh. My apartment was in a big old house on Granger Place!

It couldn't be. But no, it was.

My house was on fire. I drove up and saw flames shooting out of the window next to my third-story apartment. I panicked. A friend from work had also heard it on the news and he came right over....he knew which house I lived in! I crumpled up into his arms and sobbed.

There wasn't anything to do, really, except watch. At that point in my life, I was not even a year out of college, I had little money, and my support system was barely established. I had a few new friends at work, and I did have some family in town, but I wasn't all that close with them.

That night, a few friends rallied around. I stayed at my uncle's house where I stayed for the next 6-8 weeks or so. My cousin (who is 10 years older than me) helped out by providing me some clothing and taking me to the grocery store, Wegman's, to get some essentials, like underwear, socks, toothbrush, hairbrush, makeup, etc. Back at my uncle's house that night, I had a too much wine, and went to sleep.

The next day, I borrowed my uncle's truck and went up to the apartment house to salvage what I could. It had not burned to the ground, fortunately. Later, I learned that a wiring problem had caused the fire, somewhere in a closet on the second floor where they kept paint and other combustibles. Nice.

I found that the fire had not reached my apartment, but the smoke and water had. The fire department had attempted to protect my furnishings by placing tarps over everything, and they actually had done a pretty good job. I rescued what I could: my clarinet, my books, my music, clothing, linens, a sofa, some wooden furniture, pictures, kitchenware. (I had one friend help with the loading.) I loaded up the truck and brought it all to my uncle's garage where the sorting and cleaning began.

Pretty much all of my clothes were ruined. Even after several cycles through the dry cleaner and laundry, the smoke smell never left the clothing, and it all went to the trash. My closet had suffered the worst smoke damage because of its location in the apartment and where the fire had been. Books were in different states, some had smoke stains, some were warped from water, some were completely ruined. I still have many of those books - the ones I felt were important to me- cookbooks and music and a few academic books. I left my bedroom furniture in the house; the mattress and box spring were probably ruined and I didn't like the hand-me-down set of furniture all that much, anyway. My TV and sofa survived, thanks to the firemen's tarps.

I still have a little stuffed dog toy that was very sentimental to me from high school, and he lost an arm in the shuffle of moving, cleaning, and throwing out. I keep him in a special place to this day. Several other stuffed toys survived, also. Some are a bit dirtier, though...

I had had a pet cat at the time and she died in the fire. She was a sweet little calico kitty named Penny. I was torn up over that loss for a long time. I never did see her body, although I heard the firefighters found her.

The fire changed me, but even now I'm not sure in what way I was changed. At the time, I was tempted to leave Rochester and move back home with my parents. However, I had a job and I was establishing a life...I sort of had a boyfriend, even. I thought it was just a set back. Yet, in the following 2 years I stayed in Rochester, many other bad things happened to me. Eventually I got the message.

Like the house in the movie, "The Amityville Horror," Rochester was telling me to "GET OUT."

I did. I think that if I had not left Rochester, I probably would have killed myself, yes, literally. I was terribly depressed there. I only regret that I didn't trust my instincts sooner and leave that bad situation. Perhaps that is one thing I learned is that my gut feelings (and anyone's) are usually right.