CathyB: The Towering Inferno

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Towering Inferno

Do you remember that movie? Scared the livin' daylights out of me. When I was a kid, for some wierd reason, I had an unatural fear of fire. I believe it is called pyrophobia. Not the kind of fire in the fireplace, or in the fire pit or the campfire. No, I liked to poke around in those kinds of fires. What gave me nightmares and caused me to creep into the bed with my mom and dad (or my little brother) were the fires that consumed homes, buildings, forests, etc. The uncontrolled kind that devastate lives. When I was four years old, my grandparents' house was destroyed by fire. Until I was grown and married, I carried with me a vision of their house burning against the night sky. I believe that incident was probably the reason for the nightmares and the fear. One day while talking to my other grandmother, we were discussing why it might be that I was so afraid. I told her that I thought it was from seeing Mama Lorene and Pappy's house burning. She looked kind of funny and told me that I wasn't even there when it happened, and I did not see it burning. It was in the daytime, not at night. She did say that the following day I went with my parents over to where the home had stood, and that I started screaming and crying. I have no memory of any of this. The only memory I have is that vision of flames in the night. And for some reason, I always thought lightning had struck the house causing the fire. (Thus explains my fear of thunderstorms as well.) How strange is that. For whatever reason, I was scarred for life, and used to awaken in the night with the smell of smoke in my nostrils and the sound of crackling flames in my ears. One night I swore to my parents that the woods across the street were burning... even though it was pouring rain, and had been raining for days. If I watched a movie or a tv show that involved a fire, it was bound to be a long and tormented night for me, with terrible dreams. In the event of a thunderstorm or a tv show/movie that involved fire, I'd run up the path to spend the night with Mama Nay. She would sleep with me in Uncle Ricky's old bedroom, and I wouldn't be afraid. Mama Nay soothed away many nightmares for me when I was young. I'm very happy and relieved to say that, with age, I outgrew the unatural fear. But I'm tellin' ya, that Towering Inferno movie really did scare me to death. When I was about 20 years old, the office where I worked went to a convention in Atlanta, where we stayed at the Peachtree Plaza. (Uh oh... guess where I'm going with this...) My co-workers and I were on like the zillionth floor, and I wasn't too excited about it at all. One night we came in from a dinner party and had just got settled in our jammies when Judy looked out the window and casually says "what are all those fire trucks doing down there?" Oh. My. Goodness. I flew to the window, and sure enough, there were seven or eight of them, small enough to be Matchbox cars. Tiny little men no larger than ants were scurrying about far below. I'm panicking, trying to find a bathrobe and slippers, then said to heck with it, and start out the door in my PJs. I was no fool. There's no ladder tall enough to get up to our room, so I'm gettin' outta Dodge as fast as I can. Susan, an older and wiser co-worker, was calmly on the phone with the front desk inquiring about the activity. A false alarm, she reported, but with a building that size, the firemen must come investigate and determine that indeed it was a false alarm. I kept my face pressed against that window high in the Atlanta skyline, with my nose on alert for the smell of smoke, and my ears on alert for any unusual sounds like popping, cracking, screaming, smoke alarms, etc. Eventually, the tiny little firemen drove away in their tiny little fire trucks, and I got a tiny little bit of sleep. I was so happy to get back home to the boondocks where I knew that, even though Statham didn't have a ladder truck, somebody could get me out of my house with a stepladder if they ever needed to.

Well, I've wandered as far away from the intent of this post as I possibly could, so now let me wrangle myself back to what I wanted to write about. Saturday night Norma and Mike hosted a surprise birthday party for Nany. She will turn 75 this month!! What a milestone. Her sister-in-law made the most awesome birthday cake with 75 candles on it!! It was beautiful. I'm posting some pictures of the party, and I think you'll see where I got my inspiration for the title and content of today's post.

Nany's cake with 75 candles.

Isn't it beautiful?

Side view of Nany's cake

with 75 candles

Took two people to light Nany's Cake

with 75 candles

Nany's cake with 75 candles

all lit up

Nany's cake with 75 candles -

The Towering Inferno!!

Poor Nany had to have help blowing out the candles. I was afraid she was going to catch her blouse on fire!! It was a beautiful cake, and we all had a big laugh. You always hear jokes about needing a fire extinguisher for all the birthday candles.... well, it was almost no joke this time. I was so happy that Mike got these shots. It was a real Kodak Moment, that's for sure!! It was lots of fun, and I'm so glad I got to go and spend some time with the family. Yep, they'll always be family to me. Here's a few more photos taken after the danger of smoke inhalation had passed: