Godzilla Enters Talent, by Patti

Godzilla Enters Talent 

by Patti

note: this article appears on page four in the December 2020 issue of the Talent Historical Society Newsletter, The Historicale

    Patti and Myke live in Holiday Gardens on Talent Avenue.  Patti is a retired teacher and lived and taught on Guadalcanal Island in the Solomon Islands for 20 years. This adventure has added a new story to her vast repertoire.

 

    I knew it was past time to leave my apartment when I heard what sounded like Godzilla coming up Talent Ave. throwing propane tank bombs and exploding ammunition. I had established an evacuation plan long ago with my neighbor, Myke, who has a car, but she was in Medford when the fire broke out. With no car, and carrying Myke’s cat Sassy, I could only carry a small daypack if I had to hitchhike out, so I chose to take my Dad’s WW2 bronze star, his letter of commendation and a necklace with shards of Roman glass in it given to me by a friend in Israel. I had planned someday to give it to my niece. 

Another neighbor said I could ride with her but she was going to wait for the Level 3 evacuation order which never came. I didn’t want to wait any longer because even though we hadn’t been alerted, it felt like, and turned out to be, Level 3 then. I couldn’t go out to the street, which was bumper to bumper with evacuees, because the cat and cage were too heavy for me to carry far. Luckily a man from our compound was being wheeled out by members of his church. They had room and his daughter said Sassy and I could go with them. The wind and smoke made it hard to breathe as we walked to Rays, a block away, where she was parked.  Luckily one of the church members carried Sassy’s cage for me as I was struggling to breathe. We headed up to feeder roads behind Talent and Phoenix, hoping to make our way to Walmart where Myke was waiting for her cat and her essential medications which I had grabbed.  Behind Phoenix we could see flames shooting across the orchards below and the winds had shifted in our direction, so we turned around and headed up to Jacksonville. I looked back to see an air tanker dropping its load on the fast-moving flames approaching vehicles on HWY 99 and I-5. As we were heading to Jacksonville, thick black smoke full of flames came towards us. We saw a metal shed and a small pond we might have to use as a refuge but luckily the winds shifted. We decided to go up a back way to Williams after stopping at a farm to ask if we were on the right road. 

I stayed with my rescuers on their farm in Williams for two nights. The room I slept in was full of taxidermy animals. I let Sassy out of her cage, and she immediately stood up on her haunches and snarled at the slightly open closet door. The eyes peering out at her were a cougar they’d had to shoot a few years ago when it stalked sheep in their pasture. There was also a moose rack that she loved rubbing on. 

The second day we could see the huge smoke cloud from the Happy Camp fire and were informed that Williams was on Level 1 alert so the third morning they took me to Ashland where Sassy and Myke were reunited, and I had a friend to stay with.

I have a lot of Solomon Islanders on my FB page and some got a bit confused by the English when I wrote that it looked like a flamethrower was ejecting flames over the orchards at about 4 football fields a second. I hear the story going around Guadalcanal is that the real Godzilla came to Talent and a Polynesian who dances with twirling flame sticks (there are two Polynesian Islands in the Solomon Islands) was fighting Godzilla while I and others were fleeing Talent. Love this lost in translation account of my evacuation.