Having passed like greased lighning through most of the grieving process vis-a-vis the Devil's Barbecue in my back yard Friday, I'm no longer angry/denying/depressed/negotiating. Not 100% accepting but getting there.

Friends, naturally an event like this brings to sharp focus that Joni Mitchell spoke wisdom--"you don't know what you've got till it's gone." But the funny thing is, in this case, I got a free, kaleidoscopically spectacular mental slide show I call The Past Presents The Future.

Sifting through my student artwork, sometimes I'd feel smug, knowing that the naive clueless clumsyboy who made some genuinely **awful** images has evolved. Sometimes I'd feel a knifey Pang, when I uncovered something I'd invested hours & soul-chunks in, & was as good as I had then, & now eaten up. But mostly it is That Was Then, This Is Now with the artwork, and aside from a few Lucky Strikes that one gets when one deals in volume, there's nothing I did then that I can't do now a lot better.

Much of the correspondence from my high school/college sweetheart is burnt or soggy, and she almost always used water-soluble ink--but like a hologram, the percentage that is left still reveals the entirety, if in soft focus.

(My very good Eons friend Peggy admired my wife for letting me hang on to such. My Sweet Wife IS quite accepting & understanding, which is a huge relief & prevents hiding & deceiving. Bless her! Long ago, on an excursion to Catalina Island, she was starting to show her gestation of our daughter & you'd think she'd feel vulnerable. But she nudged me, pointed to a woman about 50 feet away, & said "Look, Gary--if you look at the armhole of her blouse you can see she's not wearing a bra." She knows I love the female form, & is unthreatened by my female friends, & I of course reciprocate re her & her male harem, ha ha, at least Officially. Our motto is "What goes on between your ears is between You and You.")

Here's my father's high school diploma, miraculously intact. Here's two pictures of my ne'er-do-well Grandfather, "Papa." (I encouraged my baby daughter to call me Papa, & she did till about three & a half, then asserted her independence to Daddy & then Dad. She even called me "Gare-shter" once. Sigh.)

My grandmother's rattan furniture--liked it but wasn't in love with it, & it's a legitimately claimable loss. Books & magazines--that's what Libraries are for. Camera, binoculars, easel, frames, portfolios--in the final analysis, they are life-easing things, not hard to cast aside.

It grins me to know I have something in common with Norman Rockwell, whose studio burned down, and Thomas Edison, whose lab burned up--WAY up. "Go get your mother!!" Tom said to his child. "She'll never see anything like this again!!" He was actually ENTERTAINED by the conflagration!

And I'm entertained by the mental video of the whole thing. How very farcical it was when I was soaking myself down, frantically trying to unscrew a rusted-on sprinkler attachment which made the effective range of the hose about a foot and a half--what a Buffoon!! The Panic Reaction always turns me into a drooling imbecile.

The neighbors had gasoline and propane in their largely-destroyed shed. Providentially, the Fire Department showed up quite quickly. If they hadn't, two houses might have been added to the casualty list.

As for the arsonist--I hope they catch him. He needs to not make any more fires. But I don't wish grievous bodily harm on him--I'm partaking of the wisdom of the Amish and Dr. Seuss's Whos here. Vengeance is NOT mine, nor do I want it. And thank Goodness. If I did, it would eat on me worse than a fire.