Community

From supplying water pump bicycles to undeveloped countries to empowering impoverished women and orphans, Bob Pagett, the founding president of Scotts Valley-based Assist International, learned about giving at an early age.

Maybe our gardens in California should never have looked like a Monet painting filled with layer upon layer of water-thirsty perennials and lush green lawns big enough for a soccer match. However, we were first settled by Easterners who could grow these plants with natural rainfall so it wasn’t our fault if we learned to grow water-thirsty gardens. Now we are wiser and smarter. We may have been kicking and screaming at first, but all of us now accept that water is limited and we need to use it wisely.

Tuesday night my partner received an alert on her phone that Boulder Creek was getting evacuated, the fire was spreading and from that point on is when everything took a turn for the worst. Coming from the Bay Area of San Jose and moving to Felton has all been very new territory and uncommon experiences from what I’m used to. Being evacuated from my home has been an experience I never thought I’d have to encounter. Emotions have been high, feelings of uncertainty, fear, and possible loss of my home have been running through me in waves this past week.

Having spent my tender years being shuffled from one aunt’s house to another, I was often found clamming with them on the ocean shore in Westport, Wash., or shaking crab in our family’s cannery on its wharf.