They lost everything.
The house. The photos. The instruments … The furniture. The pots and pans. The cats.
Six cats—“all senior citizens”—that they loved like children.
They still visit Paradise, calling out their names, praying that, somehow, one, staggering around the ruins, survived.
But Marianne and her husband, John, carry on—living, for now, at a friend’s house in Chico.
Generosity, evidently, knows no bounds when people are truly at odds, and the historic California Camp Fire left so many at odds.
Marianne, who started strumming at 11, chuckles when I quote the musty zinger, “You won’t get famous with a Framus,” but still, she misses her old guitar, another victim of the fire. An Army brat who fell into the family business for awhile in the early 70s, Marianne was peripatetic prior to settling in Paradise 20 years ago. She picked up the Framus in Germany.
Marianne is the winner of the Breedlove Custom Masterclass Extraordinary Experience. She filed the custom guitar design form so long ago—time runs slow when life spins out of control—that she doesn’t remember what specifications she asked for on the guitar being built for her.
She’s not concerned. She’s just ready for it to be wonderful.
“I couldn't believe it when I got the news. This kind of stuff doesn't happen to me. It was overwhelming because of the contrast to what I had just experienced. It was very exciting.”
And healing, she says, too.
“You bet. It's my next step musically. Goodness, to have a wonderful guitar to play, that's just for me … it’s breathtaking and quite a thrill, quite a thrill.”
Marianne had other instruments—a Taylor, a Washburn, an electric and even a banjo—all gone.
“Most things were just misshapen, melted, cracked. Everything was pretty much destroyed.”
It was, needless to say, a bad night.
“It was surreal,” Marianne says, a hint of recollected panic creeping into her voice. “My husband was planning to go on an outing with a buddy of his. All of a sudden he was hearing something, like it was raining—there wasn't rain in the forecast. He goes outside and there are embers falling everywhere. That was the sound, the ‘rain.’”
“Sadly, we never got called to evacuate, and we had to decide what to do. It was pitch black over us, the wind just howling. We knew that wherever this fire was, it was close, so we had to make a decision to go. By that time there were only two ways out, and both were blocked with abandoned vehicles.”
“We wound up going down the Skyway toward Chico, and were able to get around the empty cars. We made it down okay, but we were going through areas where fire was just pouring down. It was really crazy, and really scary, and I don't want to ever go through that again.”
Marianne is, as noted, not famous, but she found the same joy in music that we all do. She says John—and her daughter and granddaughter— listen. But she plays.
She’d been doing open mics regularly before the Camp Fire and hopes to find another outlet for her talent and passion soon. She especially enjoyed the weekly gatherings at the California Grange in Paradise (also razed).
“If I played the Grange tonight, I’d probably sing Neil Young’s ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down,’ the one with ‘castles burning.’ It’s strange to sing about that, things burning, but I’m still trying to get it out of my system.”
A Texas native, Marianne, 67, recently retired from 28 years as a mail carrier, a physically demanding job, but one with rewards. She knew everyone on her route like family.
With newfound time on her hands, she decided to pursue her love of music even more, and at the time of the wildfires was taking lessons with a local named Gene Kelly, who picks pretty well but ain’t no dancer.
“He was helping me get more into finger style,” she beams, “and I think that is my love.”
When they return to the charred remains of their idyllic life together, they mourn. Presently, they don’t plan on rebuilding, or even returning to Paradise. But they do have hope. Marianne is durable, and damn if she doesn’t look forward to a future filled with more folk songs.
“A guitar is always there,” she says of her much anticipated new six-string friend. “If you're feeling like you need to express yourself in some way, it's always available. I like the fact that you can carry it around. It's portable; not a fixed thing that you have to go to. You can bring it with you.”
The couple would love to head to Oregon while the dream guitar is being built, but right now they are too tied down with the legal matters and lacunae of insurance, finance and beyond—the bureaucratic detritus mother nature leaves behind.
They do hope they might be able to pick it up in Bend, when the instrument is complete a few months from now.
“We really do want to go up there, and see where they are,” She sighs. “I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”
When asked how folks in other states—and other conditions—can help those in her position, Marianne pauses a moment, thinking of her lost felines.
“Alley Cat Allies (alleycat.org) has set up shop in Paradise, to help with trapping lost animals and putting them in a safe place until they can get owners and pets together again. That's near and dear to my heart.”
Sometimes, Marianne, the right person wins the prize.
