A Tehachapi summer
A Tehachapi summer
By: Jon Hammond
Description: week in review
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Posted by editor Tue Aug 15, 2006 14:14:53 PDT
Viewed 722 times
0 responses 0 comments With the Tehachapi Mountain Festival approaching this weekend, our weather returned to a more typical summer pattern of daytime highs in the upper 80s and low 90s and nights in the low 60s — or colder: higher elevations in the Tehachapi area reported lows of 48 degrees Fahrenheit last week.
I saw smoke plumes of two very different colors last week. The first was on Saturday at approximately 1 p.m. when a giant billowing cloud of gray and white smoke rose skyward from the mountains north of town.
Big thunderheads often form over the Sierra Nevadas and these towering cumulus clouds peek over the mountains from the north into the Tehachapi Valley, but Saturday’s cloud was made of smoke, not water vapor.
The source was a blaze dubbed the Cottonwood Fire near Jawbone Canyon and Kelso Valley, and as of presstime on Saturday (a week later) it had burned 2,346 acres and was considered 100-percent contained though there were still fire crews on duty.
The second smoke plume I saw was totally black and occurred exactly 24 hours later. On Sunday at 1 p.m., a Don Keith Trucking tanker truck hauling wheel bearing grease was travelling westbound on Highway 58 and experienced a tire blowout near the Arvin cutoff.
The resulting friction ignited the other tires on the driver’s side of the truck and before long the back of the trailer was engulfed in black smoke. The driver wisely pulled off on the wide dirt parking area near where Bena Road passes under the highway and disconnected the burning trailer. Though the fire burned for half an hour, it was extinguished by a Kern County Fire Department engine based at Keene.
It was also a good week to see reptiles, since this year’s crop of blue-bellied lizards (Western Fence Lizards, officially) has hatched out and there are many of these babies scurrying around at ground level.
They are miniature replicas of their parents and initially weigh no more than a large paper clip, though they move considerably faster. And they have to be quick, for they are prey for virtually any predator from a kestrel or shrike to a snake or even a tarantula.
I’m also still seeing rattlesnakes, though their activity waned during the hot spell — heat can kill snakes much quicker than cold, and they avoid intense heat as surely as they do intense cold.
It was with sorrow that I attended the huge Thursday funeral of Tehachapi’s most popular sheriff’s deputy, Dave Cord, who died on Aug. 6 after a long fight with cancer and other medical conditions. Dave retired in 2005 after 27 years with the KCSD, almost all of them spent in the Tehachapi area.
Looking around at the crowd of mourners, you could see people from many parts of the community: fire departments and law enforcement, the school district, car enthusiasts, Dave’s childhood (and lifelong) friends, and many others. . . . This large man was not complex, he was simple: Honest, kind, fair, humble and cheerful, even in the face of overwhelming physical problems.
Dave Cord put people first during his many years in law enforcement and even those he had to warn or arrest often continued to view him with respect and affection. Dave was a blessing to Tehachapi and his many friends and loved ones, and our thoughts are with Joanie, Courtney, Ashley and the rest of Dave’s family.
Thank you for the integrity and love you always showed to your hometown, Dave. And thanks for that generous, day-brightening smile of yours.
Have a good week.
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