True Confession

""Okay."

We're at my sisters in Oakland. We were also here in 1991 a week after a  wind swept fire storm raced across the dry Oakland hills. Before it let up 25 people died, and 2500 families were walking the streets screaming, "We've lost everything!"

My sister Brenda was among them. I knew that right away because she called me on the phone in the news room? I tried to get the attention of the producers and news director, saying, " I think we got a story here!"

Well Brenda and Bill ended up in People Magazine and my news room? It ended up playing catch up for a week 'cause it wasn't listening that day. I remember quickly turning my attention to telling Brenda to "Get the Hell Out of There!"

She had time to grab a few pictures and (she's always loved them) a bunch of bananas before flames chased her down the hill.

I knew Bill was at work, Matt and Cyd were off to school, and I'd been talking to Brenda on the phone. So that's what was most important, right?

Here comes the confession. It's a guilt I've kept somewhat subterranean.

I was MOST worried about the bust you see up above. Don't know if it even has a title. I just discovered on this trip that she is the work of Berkeley sculptor, Lorraine Oller. [Nice work Lorraine]

[Brenda and Bill must have liked her too. Brenda tells me now that as they drove away from the ashes? They wondered , "what happened to the 'Oller' bust?" She was sitting in the front seat right between them.]

You can ask me why, but I'll never have a good answer for you. When I look at this bust I see Edna St. Vincent Millay. I see passion. I see rebellion. I see perplexity.

Okay, just look at her for a second and then listen to Millay:

"Love is not all. It is not meat, nor drink, nor slumber, nor roof against the rain, nor yet a floating spar to men who sink and  rise and sink and rise and sink again." "Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath."  "... many a man is making friends with death, even as I speak, for lack of love alone.". "I might be driven to sell your love for peace. I do not think I would!"

Couldn't that pouty face up there say all those things? I've seen pictures of Edna. Her nose is bigger, the hairdo looks similar? But there's no literal match. But the eyes drifting off into an imaginary sunset? Then you've got twins.

Well, that's my true confession for what it's worth. I'm just glad the oldgirl is still around.

[UPDATE: She's been cloned. Brenda has had the Oller re-done in bronze. And she's thinking about having some more copies made. Wondering what to get me for my birthday?]