Anybody that's ever been to Paradise would understand why there's nothing left, it's been overgrown for fifty years I've lived in plumas county.

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder if there's some sort of annealing process which can restore the metal to a workable, paint-adhering state.

 

I wanted to send a thank you out to 78F250 for starting this post, which turns out to be about my truck.

If you click on my profile there is my goodbye to Ole Blue which is about this truck and my other truck.

My fellow towns members are not forgotten but difficult for me to think about. The photo you see is not showing the line of cars next to my truck that burned. After I made my last post and someone said that the picture of my truck was semi-viral, I found the photographer and he sent me all the photos he had. I was trying to see what was in front of my truck. It should have been my girlfriends 2003 Focus. There were no pictures of that but of remains being collected in a box about the size of a space saver spare tire. We all have some degree of PTSD and being focused on my “material items” keeps me from breaking down over the loss of life that all of us that were up there believe was much higher then the official count of 86. Paradise was also a car town. On the Ridge as we called it we had 2 to 3 car shows per week in the summer. I’ve gone around and taken pictures of more then 50 old cars that only took me an hour of walking to do. I’m planning on making a video of them. I never realized how many old cars and trucks were in garages of that town. It seemed like every 4th house had an old car hidden away. So I figured someone has got to mourn for the cars. When I looked back at my truck engulfed in flames, it looked sad like it was looking at me saying goodbye. Many joke about vehicles having a soul. They may not really have a soul but many of them are loved.

The front gas gas door on my truck was not on there as I had removed the saddle tank and never got around to putting it back in. The rear door either blew open or I forgot to close it because I was standing in the street putting what little gas I had from my lawn mower jerry can in there. The big dent in the truck was from a bull dozer pushing it off the side of the road. I had pulled it over but with the other cars on the road my truck was blocking the road. She was in great shape when I left her. I rolled up the windows and locked the doors expecting to be able to return for her. But being low on fuel and stuck in traffic I knew I couldn’t drive her out that day. So I went and got in my girlfriends car just a few cars ahead of me. Part of me was starting to realize the danger we were in and I wanted to be with her and my pets. Moments later I looked back and my truck was on fire and that’s when I told her to pull to the side, grab the cats because we have to run. Thankfully she had the smarts to have a carrier for each cat.

The truck was a 1979. I had put a 73 grill on it. It was blue with white inside the racetrack trim. And yes it burned so hot it collapsed the springs. Same thing happened on my 20th anniversary Mustang. And the leaf springs on my truck bed trailer bent the opposite direction. I had put a Dana 60 with rear disc brakes on my truck, super cab springs and air bags in the rear so for an F150, she could haul quite a load.

Sorry for rambling, I only intended to write a short bit answering questions or confirming comments but I start reliving it every time I think about it.

 

Man, I'm really sorry you had to go through that. One of my friend's house burned down when we were in high school, and he was never the same - his personality wasn't any different, but he became more irresponsible with his material possessions after that.

Just goes to show you that you can't expect to be able to just get in your car and drive to safety when there's a large scale emergency like that. That state should have closed all roads to all traffic except for those evacuating, and then they should've taken steps to ensure the flow of that traffic out of the area.

We have tornadoes here out in flyover country.

 

I can totally understand how a few short comments can morph into the full story, as you're typing it out fourxfour.
Things you know are there, but may not think or talk about often just keep coming to the front of your mind as you're relating the story of your truck and I'm glad you decided to let them out to be shared.
thanks for that.
Sorry you had to go through that, but sounds like you made several key, life changing, bur more importantly life SAVING decisions when they really counted that day!

I wonder if it belonged to one of my customers named Chris?
I had not even remembered that he lived in Paradise, until last week when we were planning a Bronco meet-n-greet down here in Sunnyvale. I was going through people to invite and saw the Paradise address. With all that had happened, I had to get in touch to, first make sure they had made it out, and second if they had I actually thought they might have relocated somewhere nearby so wanted to reach out. He got back and said his much loved Bronco had gone up in flames with the rest of his property and they'd just gotten out alive, like 73 fourxfour did.
It's entirely possible that even in a small community there was more than one old Bronco perhaps. But I still wonder what the chances are that meangreen saw Chris' Bronco.

Glad you're still kicking and popping in here too 73. Hopefully some semblance of normalcy will return. Or at least seem to sometimes.

Paul

 

73 fourxfour,

I wasn't in love with starting this thread, knowing so much about what happened in the fires out west. The pic of your truck just brought home the desolateness and sadness of all that had gone on. The loss of life, human and animal, people losing their homes and memories and the general all-around loss. You are right about vehicles being loved even if they don't have a soul. We put a lot of ourselves into our cars & trucks and it's a partial loss of our own selves when a vehicle is lost.

I do not think you rambled on but if you did then maybe it's good to talk about it. I'm happy that you and yours got out with your lives.

You are welcome for the thread.

Dennis