Yep, pretty sad where we are as a society. I vividly remember the armed National Guards blocking HWY 22 at Mehama. They weren't joking when they said we couldn't pass, I tried to explain that I needed to check on my rental property but they weren't having it. So I did what I thought was smart, came up the canyon from the other side of the river and bypassed them 1/4 mile down the road. I'm glad your guy with a gun encounter ended up without fireworks.
Thank you.
When we had the first big fire, (2020) there was a lot trash talk from the left to "not spread rumors" about people starting fires, saying that it was all false. We had been listening to the scanner and heard straight from the CCSO about who they were looking for and why, which affirmed that was BS. We heard it from the "horses mouth" but the media was directly lying.
The media was lying you say!! How can that be? They are the bastions of democracy!
Just like ODF&W telling me there weren't any wolves near Mt. Hood around 2000 after I followed the tracks of one, which in turn was following deer.
And they all wonder why we are losing faith in what they say. But such answers usually come down from on high and the 'company line' is what they are told to say. Not staying in their lane can be career suicide (Note what happened to the FBI ASIC after the first NOLA presser. She just got reassigned. Shi**y weather in upper MT this time of year!).
Dad was a career Forest Service employee, starting as a trail crew member during the summers when he was in school, then a lookout for a couple of years before joining the Air Force during the Korean War and retiring in 86. Even at that time (86) he was pretty disgusted with the policies being enacted. The Spotted Owl debacle was the first one that didn't set well with him. The "studies" were flawed and were basically setting an agenda that was false. The USFS doesn't manage forests anymore. It's all BS.
I always point out to people that you do not hear about managed forests (Weyerhouser, GP, etc) burning up. Fire damage is when the bases and roots are burned excessively. When fires move through the tops of trees it is quick and damage is recoverable. Every time? Not always but the fires move faster across the tops. Oregon's Greenies (rhymes with weenies) have caused untold damage over the years.
I still remember the ash falling all over and having to dust it off the car for about a week.
You were a conscientious homeowner. Out of curiosity, were your neighbors in Pollock Pines as diligent as you were in protecting your home from fire?
In West Covina there are nice homes built on what was a toxic dump when I lived there in the 80s. Out towards Big Bear off hwy 15, I forget the name of the city. It was a dry lake bed but now a huge community. California plays with people's lives as if they hold no value.
I don't know if we're really any worse as a society now compared to decades gone by, but there is one differential I do find rather troubling today: the low lifes who find a perverted joy out of harming, insulting, or humiliating innocent others just so they may record it on their cell phones and broadcast to the world wide web. That level of psychotic fetish seems quite a bit beyond the more familiar evils we've historically experienced.
