This all may have been reflected in the mistake I made, perhaps subliminally, in the heading of last week’s blog when I referred to “CORVID-19” rather than COVID-19. My “Corvid” T-shirt from Michigan, covered with crows, is in a drawer someplace right now, and I actually was writing about the coronavirus — soon to be denied the vestiges of outdoor freedom by smoke.

The memory of Charlie and the others still means a lot to me, in any case — most recently the older couple who spent so much of their lives perched on the peak of the tall old house across the street. They dropped over regularly to eat at our back door.

Charlie was sort of a hobo, liked to travel and was fond of cars. He came home with me atop my car — and eventually left the same way when the urge struck him. Fosdick was a part-time gardener with a fondness for worms. He also flew by and batted my head with a wing when I came out of the house. The many others all had their individual idiosyncrasies.

Complete species have become lost to me in inner Port Townsend over the years — Chinese pheasant, quail, western meadowlark, red-wing blackbird, barn swallow, stellar jay, hawks. I imagine many of those have been driven to the remaining pockets of wildernesses as deer have been driven inward by the same human sprawl.

HAVING SAVED SOME SPACE FOR DONALD, who has always nursed a hatred for California, Oregon and Washington: The other day, he was (as usual) trying to explain what he meant by something he said. He said he lied to citizens of the U.S. so that they would remain calm and unworried about the severity of the coronavirus — apparently out of ignorance. “That’s what I did when Hitler was bombing London” (remained calm), Donald said, comparing himself erroneously to Churchill.

That would be World War II, which began with Hitler’s invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939 and ended officially in 1945. Donald was born in 1946 and should have read up a bit on Churchill, who before a near-lifetime in politics was a war correspondent and prisoner of war as such.

WW2 also inspired Churchill to truthfully alert the British people to “blood, sweat and tears” they were about to face.

On Nov. 17, 2018, Trump visited the remains of a California retirement community that was devastated by a wildfire that had destroyed more than 9,000 homes and driven some 52,000 from their homes. He said the state would “get this cleaned up”and “take care of the floors of the forest.” He explained to reporters, about the fire that killed at least 76 people, that wildfires weren't a problem in Finland because crews "spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things" to clear forest floors. Finland's president wasn't sure where U.S. President Donald Trump got the idea that raking is part of his country's routine for managing its substantial forests.
Forests cover over 70 percent of Finland's 210,000 square miles. The Nordic country with a population of 5.5 million is home to some of the world's biggest paper and pulp companies.

I gave up about Saturday trying to keep up with daily fire news via the brevity of a weekly blog when the area burned passed 4,000,000 acres in nearly 100 wildfires involving 30,000 fire fighters — and I envisioned a single city block of inaccessible local forest or pine and manzanita in Northern California, where I also once lived.

Just getting to parts of it with a rake would be the first problem.

Donald has a wide variety of topics to juggle before the public to disguise the reality of his feverish quest for re-election and recognition. Not the least of these were the many thousands of individuals fleeing flames and millions hiding from smoke behind closed doors throughout the west over the weekend and beyond.

The coronavirus pandemic (swiftly approaching some 200,000 official U.S. dead) continues, he still claiming to be heroic while leading the world in dead and dying.

His regular reference to U.S. military dead and others as “losers” and “suckers,” moving of 12,000 troops out of Germany, backing of a gold mine in the prime salmon habitat of Bristol Bay, oil drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, banning of similar drilling off the Gulf Coast (key election state) only, $13.3 billion more for nuclear missiles, Hurricane Sally, Woodward’s book, Cohen’s book, the Bolton book, niece Mary’s book . . . the Department of Justice, and more . . . much more.

And people still vote for him!