Ever After (16 page)

I turn to look behind me, wonder if I can go on. How can I stifle my bitterness?

“I've been learning more about the seed-growing phenomenon in Oregon. I've been reading the newspapers and listening to conversations. It seems brutally crude to me. I ask if there is anyone here at this service who can tell me why it continues, anyone who can defend this vulgarity? If so, speak now or see me after the service.”

I don't want to talk long. But I want them to know something of what's been lost to all of us. I concentrate on Kate and the children. I recount briefly her life with us, then the all-too-short lives of the children. I tell how Bert was like a member of our family, in his looks, in his mannerisms, and in other ways, without ever denying his Oregon beginnings. He's been a credit to all of us and look at how he's been rewarded, smashed, burned, melted in the asphalt with his family on that dreaded I-5 highway.

“Although we, ourselves, our family, except for Bert Woodman, are not Oregonian, about half our family are now permanent residents. It wasn't their choice.” Again, I turn to look back at those over-decorated caskets, hiding everything.

“Our family will be in the soil of Oregon for the rest of their existence on this earth. I hope those responsible for the horror of our family's deaths, the seed-dealers, growers, the government officials, will look again at this practice and stop it. They must! This can't go on in a civilized society.”

I know I've been somewhat hard but the anger is deep within me. I did not intend to be so intractable.

Each of our own kids, including Robert, stands up to say a few words. Some of the Woodman family also speak. Jo Ellen, the practicing Catholic in their family, lends a religious note. She reads from the New Testament. Claire is too embarrassed to speak herself. I lean over toward Rosemary to see if she has anything to say but her face is wet with tears, and she smiles, shakes her head no.

The caskets are at the front of the room behind the rostrum. They are wooden and ornate; and they're closed, naturally. I'm not sure if they're smaller than normal; they don't need to be full-length caskets to hold the pitiful remains until cremation.

We file out and over to a place where refreshments are available. It's about three streets away. There are even more people than I saw at the ceremony. Perhaps they were outside. John had mounted loudspeakers so anyone outside could hear what was being said. On the way out, I ask him if he saw anyone I could speak to about field burning. He shakes his head no.

When the formalities of the funeral are over, we gather at Claire Woodman's. The almost-hysterical quality of this morning has burned itself out. Everyone is involved in packing, calling airlines on the sole phone, saying goodbye. There's much emotion in the air and, with each leaving, many tears. It's as if it's only now that we're realizing the finality of it all. Steve is doing most of the ferrying up and down to the Portland airport. Camille and Sam are going up into Washington, on an island near Seattle to visit with Sam's sister for a while. Matt and Juliette will be flying to Philadelphia to visit close friends. I imagine all of them are searching out people, close, non-family friends with whom they can share their grief.

Rosemary and I are the last to leave. We do our best to straighten up the mess made by so many people living together in a limited space. It isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Claire must have slept little, cleaning up after all of us last night.

I pack my bag and go out into the corral and pet the horses. I'm always shocked by their tremendous strength, vitality. I don't know what it is, but something in their passivity sets me off again. I find myself leaning against Ginger, the smaller of the two horses, crying to the ends of my being. I don't know how long it lasts; it probably isn't long, but it seems like forever.

After I've wiped myself off with my handkerchief, dried my eyes, brushed off the hay and horse dust, I'm ready. I feel anger surging in me—at the wastefulness, at the uselessness, of it all—replacing the numbing sense of loss.

When I return to the house, Rosemary, Robert, and Steve are waiting. They've put all the bags, including mine, into Steve's car. I had said I might stay on to fight field burning. I guess no one was fooled.

I say goodbye to Claire, Jo Ellen, and Diane. I hold up pretty well; so do they, although we're only going through the motions. Steve is in the driver's seat for the fourth time this morning. Our plane flies out to Los Angeles at one o'clock. Jean, my sister, and Leo, her husband, will meet us. I want to share my feelings with them, especially Jean. I think it will help. I suspect Rosemary has similar feelings. She and Jean were close friends from before we were married. I slump in the back seat. Rosemary is looking at the Oregon scenery as it passes by. Robert is already asleep.

T
HE FLIGHT
down seems long but it's only a few hours. Rosemary and I sit next to each other, she in the window seat. Robert sits in another row in another window seat. The plane's about three-quarters full.

I'm going over all the newspaper articles about the accident. Many are devoted to eyewitness reports. The first are from the
Statesman Journal
and the
Oregonian
. They give the totals: thirty-seven hurt, twenty-three vehicles involved, seven dead, twenty-eight taken to Albany General hospital, and an unspecified number to Good Samaritan Hospital in Corvalis. Not much is given about the condition of the injured. The dead had not all been identified when this edition came out.

I'm shocked to read a statement by a man named Brian Calligan, manager of the Department of Environmental Quality, that field burning would continue today, as planned, in Linn County and elsewhere. Linn County is where the accident occurred. He also says that, “Overall burn conditions were quite good today. What happened was a very unfortunate thing, but this state allows farmers to burn their fields.”

I lean back to absorb this. To Mr. Calligan, this is a “very unfortunate thing.” And, he's doing nothing to prevent it from happening again. New burning has been scheduled.

Earl Thompkins, the son of Paul Thompkins, who set the fire, tells reporters that his father doesn't want to talk about it. “I don't think anyone has anything to say at this time.”

So, I have the answer to one of my questions: why none of the people involved has contacted us to express their condolences. One felt that it had been an “unfortunate thing.” The other, who lit the fire, just didn't want to talk about it. Why?

The stories of the witnesses.

Dale Cronin, working nearby at a small plant, said, “The fire had already started when I came out. There were probably twenty-five or thirty people screaming, saying … ‘Get out of the way! Get back from the fire, get back!'”

Some of the seriously injured were moved into the shade; the temperature, without the fire, approached a hundred degrees. Plant employees brought first-aid supplies, water, and blankets. A few of the less seriously injured were helped into the company's air-conditioned building.

I find also that, on Wednesday, the day before, there were three Mid-Willamette Valley wildfires that got away from the farmers who had started them. A spokeswoman from the field-burning office for the Department of Environmental Quality said that ryegrass farmers burned 3,000 acres in Benton, Linn, Washington, and Yamhill counties—all this on Wednesday. So far this year 18,000 acres had been burned. Tuesday's burning of 5,000 acres in Linn County and the Salem area produced fifty-eight complaints of smoke.

“It really made a lot of people miserable,” the spokeswoman said. She also said that wildfires, many resulting from field fires, contributed to the problem. There were more wildfires in Marion, Polk, and Yamhill counties. Lieutenant Dale McKinney of the McMinnville Fire Department said fifty fire-fighters controlled a 140-acre burn on Hill Road, west of McMinnville.

I put down my paper. It all seems so totally irresponsible, and these tragedies, this “wildfire” business, is talked about like a sporting contest or football game, for which somebody is keeping statistics.

I pick up the next day's paper. The first thing I see is a picture of our little family. Some reporter must have gotten it from the Woodmans. It shows Kate and Bert standing, with Bert holding Mia, in almost the way he held her when he came to see me on the beach that lovely afternoon. Dayiel, with her beautiful strawberry blonde hair curled on top of their head, is pressing against their legs. Wills is on the other side of Kate, her arm around him.

It's a photo I haven't seen. I drink it in. How can they not be? There's an interview with the Woodman family, which mentions that Kate, Bert, and the babies were trapped in their van and burned beyond recognition. This is verified by State Trooper Richard Smith of the Albany State Police.

The big headline is:

DEADLY CRASH STOPS FIELD BURNING
!

But will it?

The governor has ordered an investigation and a moratorium is announced at a press conference. Moratorium is the proper word. The accident is the fifth worst in Oregon's history. More statistics. State police say it may take two weeks to sort out how it occurred.

Tom Sims, a physician, says, “It's a political issue. It's an economic issue. I feel now it's a moral issue. When I heard about it, I was thinking it's time we do something about this field-burning issue. But it's too late for seven people. It brings you to tears.”

This man's sympathy brings me to tears and I have to put down the paper. I find it hard to continue. I'd begun to feel that no one in the state of Oregon gives a tinker's damn, but here's this man who seems to care.

An editorial goes more deeply into the problem. It suggests that, for the time being, until legislation can stop field burning, large flashing signs should be mandatory and placed along the highway wherever field burning could reduce visibility. It says, “These spectacular—and tremendously unpopular—fires have been considered a relatively inexpensive way for farmers to sanitize their fields against diseases and insects. It also boosts yields.” It asks, however, what the total cost will be from this latest pile-up. The property damage and medical services could be tens of millions of dollars, not taking into account the loss of life and the suffering.

How can anybody else take that into account? It's a closed account for our family.

Then it gets to the nitty-gritty part.

This is a big business, one intent on making huge profits, at whatever the cost to the ordinary person. Bill Johnson, for over ten years a dedicated opponent to grass-seed burning, is quoted: “This business of saying field burning is the only way to sanitize fields is absolutely false.” He is president and founder of the anti-field-burning group End Noxious Unhealthful Fumes (ENUF).

“There are over one hundred alternatives to field burning. There are so many that it's shameful we haven't picked up on them. Accidents like this are bound to happen again, the only way you can stop them is stop the burning. Period!”

I close the newspapers. They don't do me any good. All this is almost as hard to believe as the reality. The reality that Kate, Bert, Mia, Dayiel are all dead, cremated, probably while alive, in that van. All these statistics, these accounts of hundreds of millions of dollars being made, growing grass for people's lawns, for football stadiums, baseball fields, are depressing. Was any of this worth the lives of our family? I decide to do something about it—I don't quite know what yet—but something.

We start our descent into Los Angeles. In the arrivals' room, my sister Jean and her husband, Leo, are waving to us frantically. We run to each other, me to Jean, Rosemary to Leo. We hold on tight, rocking back and forth. We”re all crying. Leo's the first to break it up. Robert is standing apart.

“Hey, you guys, I'm parked in a no-parking zone. Let's get over there before I have a fifty-dollar fine to pay on top of everything.”

He jogs off with a sort of hobble because of his bad knees. Jean takes hold of Rosemary's hand on one side and mine on the other. Robert stands to one side. I know he's suffering deeply. We fight our way out of the terminal, past the unending vocal notification, in varying voices, not to park. Leo pulls up beside us.

We load the van with our three suitcases and pile ourselves in. Leo starts the long drive over the Santa Monica Mountains to the San Fernando Valley, to Canoga Park where they live. For a while, we don't talk much. There isn't much to say. Normally, we'd all be talking at once.