The condo above mine has been undergoing renovations for the past eight months.
It has seemed even longer than that. The noise alone and the constant disruptions in a house built in 1896 have been excruciating enough.
A week and a half ago I noticed stains on the ceiling in my bathroom. Two days later yet another stain appeared. I reported these to the new owner who has had all of these alterations made, to let him know that water is leaking down from above.
How does all of this affect the Rainbow Arc of Fire?
About a week ago, while searching in a storage area just below my bathroom (and further below the kitchen in the condo on the top floor of the house where the leak first occurred), I noticed the tell-tale sign of even more water that had doused some cardboard boxes where I had stored items that I had saved over the years.
As I began to explore further, I discovered that several cardboard boxes, and their contents, were almost entirely soaked.
At least two of the boxes contained full manuscripts and revision copies of sections of RAoF manuscripts. They were all damp and effectively ruined.
Another box contained copies of magazines and newspapers where RAoF was mentioned over the years, including a full interview with me in one OUT FRONT COLORADO publication. Many were fully ruined and could not be salvaged. I was able to recover a few issues with that interview that weren't so water logged and lay them in the warm sunlight to dry them out.
I also lost many stacks of booklets containing my journals that I had kept, and written in, by hand, from the very late 60's until the early 80's. Several were severely soaked and totally ruined.
Fortunately, I was able to salvage the typed manuscript of those journals from the 70's that I had typed in 1990. I also saved a box containing the typed manuscript of Sons of Men, my poetry that was originally written in those same journals, along with my thoughts at the time the journals were composed. There was also a box containing a manuscript of letters I had written and typed about two decades ago.
All of my Air Force missile certificates were damaged to one degree or another by water. I lay them in the hot sun to dry them out. Many were from my years as a Combat Crew deputy and commander in Minot, North Dakota, from 1974 through 1978. I had received seven highly qualified ratings during missile crew member evaluations over that time. The box containing my Air Force commendation medal was also stained and dirty. My two ancient stuffed animals, the first of which I received on my first Christmas in 1949, the second which I had gotten in an early birthday, my seventh, I believe, were also wet.
Several boxes of color slides from the late 60's through the early 80's were also slightly or moderately soaked.
This was the second time that items from my past were damaged in that storage area after being safe there for years. About a year or so ago, most of my military-era memorabilia from Marine OCS and the Air Force was soaked from a different leak. I had to throw away much from my past then. The rest I dried out in time and then put them into a more protective plastic storage container. I should have gotten other containers to protect what had been spared that first time.
That first leak was almost exactly 30 years after my forced resignation from the Air Force. So, while I had had no intention in 2009 of recalling that sorrowful time and those disappointing events, fate forced me otherwise to relive those months and years upon that 30th anniversary. I had to pull apart everything that was wet and hope it dried out. What was ruined, I had to pitch.
Not only do such experiences such as water damage force us to realize our own mortality, they also demand that we understand how fragile the existence of our personal effects can be. When we are gone, who is going to care about manuscript copies of even a writer's books? We become like Charles Foster Kane, whose precious sled is consigned to the fires by unknowing workers, asked to destroy what seems unnecessary or uninteresting among the thousands of items he'd collected over the decades of his significant life.
Those of us who are far from significant cannot expect that those personal effects we once treasured will endure after we are gone. I suppose it is easier to simply pitch them out ourselves at times such as these when the elements such as water, or fire, make their way through these precious objects before we can no longer prevent such losses after we are gone.
It has seemed even longer than that. The noise alone and the constant disruptions in a house built in 1896 have been excruciating enough.
A week and a half ago I noticed stains on the ceiling in my bathroom. Two days later yet another stain appeared. I reported these to the new owner who has had all of these alterations made, to let him know that water is leaking down from above.
How does all of this affect the Rainbow Arc of Fire?
About a week ago, while searching in a storage area just below my bathroom (and further below the kitchen in the condo on the top floor of the house where the leak first occurred), I noticed the tell-tale sign of even more water that had doused some cardboard boxes where I had stored items that I had saved over the years.
As I began to explore further, I discovered that several cardboard boxes, and their contents, were almost entirely soaked.
At least two of the boxes contained full manuscripts and revision copies of sections of RAoF manuscripts. They were all damp and effectively ruined.
Another box contained copies of magazines and newspapers where RAoF was mentioned over the years, including a full interview with me in one OUT FRONT COLORADO publication. Many were fully ruined and could not be salvaged. I was able to recover a few issues with that interview that weren't so water logged and lay them in the warm sunlight to dry them out.
I also lost many stacks of booklets containing my journals that I had kept, and written in, by hand, from the very late 60's until the early 80's. Several were severely soaked and totally ruined.
Fortunately, I was able to salvage the typed manuscript of those journals from the 70's that I had typed in 1990. I also saved a box containing the typed manuscript of Sons of Men, my poetry that was originally written in those same journals, along with my thoughts at the time the journals were composed. There was also a box containing a manuscript of letters I had written and typed about two decades ago.
All of my Air Force missile certificates were damaged to one degree or another by water. I lay them in the hot sun to dry them out. Many were from my years as a Combat Crew deputy and commander in Minot, North Dakota, from 1974 through 1978. I had received seven highly qualified ratings during missile crew member evaluations over that time. The box containing my Air Force commendation medal was also stained and dirty. My two ancient stuffed animals, the first of which I received on my first Christmas in 1949, the second which I had gotten in an early birthday, my seventh, I believe, were also wet.
Several boxes of color slides from the late 60's through the early 80's were also slightly or moderately soaked.
This was the second time that items from my past were damaged in that storage area after being safe there for years. About a year or so ago, most of my military-era memorabilia from Marine OCS and the Air Force was soaked from a different leak. I had to throw away much from my past then. The rest I dried out in time and then put them into a more protective plastic storage container. I should have gotten other containers to protect what had been spared that first time.
That first leak was almost exactly 30 years after my forced resignation from the Air Force. So, while I had had no intention in 2009 of recalling that sorrowful time and those disappointing events, fate forced me otherwise to relive those months and years upon that 30th anniversary. I had to pull apart everything that was wet and hope it dried out. What was ruined, I had to pitch.
Not only do such experiences such as water damage force us to realize our own mortality, they also demand that we understand how fragile the existence of our personal effects can be. When we are gone, who is going to care about manuscript copies of even a writer's books? We become like Charles Foster Kane, whose precious sled is consigned to the fires by unknowing workers, asked to destroy what seems unnecessary or uninteresting among the thousands of items he'd collected over the decades of his significant life.
Those of us who are far from significant cannot expect that those personal effects we once treasured will endure after we are gone. I suppose it is easier to simply pitch them out ourselves at times such as these when the elements such as water, or fire, make their way through these precious objects before we can no longer prevent such losses after we are gone.
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