(no subject)

The job goes on here in San Diego. Yesterday I went downstairs in the morning to get myself something to eat, and was suddenly called out to the street in front of the Chapter - my position is at the San Diego chapter on Fifth Avenue. Said Chapter is directly across the street from a funeral home.

A funeral home with fire trucks in the driveway, and eight or nine motorcycle cops lined up along the curb, and other cops blocking off the street.

It was the funeral for Steven Rucker, as far as I know. I know it was a firefighter's funeral. The only one I know of who had a procession yesterday was Steven Rucker; they were taking the body to his home town of El Cajon. Mr. Rucker died last Wednesday fighting the Cedar fire near the community of Julian.

I wished I'd had a hat to take off when they pulled out of the driveway, but I'd left mine upstairs when I went to the kitchen. It was, at least, sunny out. I might not be a firefighter or a uniformed service member, and so not entitled to salute, but shading one's eyes and holding it as the cops and firefighters go by looks enough like a salute to be respectful...

I think I saw one of the cops look at me, at us - at all the Red Cross people lined up along the curb - and nod in acknowledgment. I hope he knows- I hope they all know - how much we appreciate them.

November Bargain with utsuri, Part the First

Transcribed from my notes of yesterday:

11/3/03, 9 PM to midnight

Well, I promised I would produce some kind of Sergeant Preston-related material every two days during NaNoWriMo. Aside from locating two photographs to use as reference material for drawing him I did no such thing on 1 or 2 November, so I have to try to make up for it now, in the three hours left for today.

Tonight’s material is not about the man himself, really. No, tonight I write about his family; tonight I would like you to meet his paternal grandfather, one “Honest Saul” Preston. Born in 1811, he came to Canada in his early forties after the collapse of business ventures in Scotland. He spent several years dabbling in trapping the fur-bearing beasts of the western wilderness. He tired of this, turning eventually to a less strenuous and more steadily profitable line of work – the selling of provisions and supplies to his fellow frontier settlers. Shortly after he married an Alberta girl named Margaret and had a son, Robert, who grew up to become one of the very first Northwest Mounted Police. Known to his customers for his scrupulous fairness in business dealings and his plain-spoken language, Saul died at the age of 73, having seen his grandson William reach two years old.

The story is rather more complicated than that.

( Lord Peter said he suspected the Sergeant was the only white sheep in a family of black. If he (or the Sergeant) only knew. . . )