Rich man, poor man

I have never been poorer in my life than on Dec. 8, 1983.

While most people associate Dec. 7 with Pearl Harbor, it's remembered in the Smith family as the day our house burned down. My brother Jonathan and I were upstairs, watching the annual Frosty the Snowman special that always comes on a couple of weeks before Christmas. His room was the only place to get half decent reception, since we just had rabbit ears back then (I've written about a horrendous childhood deprived of cable TV in this space before).

The smoke alarm kept going off, which it usually did when Dad burned the popcorn, but this time it kept on going. My brother and I decided to head downstairs to ask Dad to just take the battery out, but when we got halfway down the stairs, we could see the flames coming through the top of the double Dutch doors which led out of the kitchen.

We fled for the front door, while my dad scooped my sleeping sisters up from their beds, and along with my mom, headed out right behind us.

I remember standing in the cold December air watching the house become fully engulfed in flames in less than 10 minutes. The 1950s farmhouse made of wood siding made for good kindling, and there wasn't much we could do but stand back and watch as it burned to the ground. My mom drove to a neighbor's house to call 911 — the fire burned through the phone line in our home right as she was telling them where we lived — but by the time the firefighters got there it was too late.

We lost everything.

We stayed at the neighbor's guest house that night, and regrouped the next day. For whatever reason, I decided to go to school the next day.

Over the next few days, neighbors all around the town of Lincoln dropped off food, clothes and other supplies. Even as our house was burning down, another neighbor down the road came up to my dad, placed a $500 L.L. Bean goosedown jacket over his shoulders, slipped several hundred bucks in his hand, and said "You can pay me back whenever."

We had only lived in the area for about two years. It wasn't like we had extensive ties to the area, or were well-known. I still have that jacket. Within a week I had more clothes than I'd ever owned in my life. Sure, most of them were second-hand, but they were nice, and there were lots of them.

Later, the day before Christmas break, my fifth-grade teacher called me out of class under the guise of running an errand to the principal's office. When I returned, my classmates had stacked hundreds of dollars of gifts in a corner of the classroom, all from money given by their parents specifically for me.

A sensitive child growing up, I stood in front of my class with tears rolling down my cheeks. I just didn't know what to say. Two weeks after losing everything I owned, I had more loot than any kid in the room.

That's what I love about small towns. Over the next few months, as we rebuilt on the same property, my family and I realized we were truly blessed by the community, and because we all got out safely. The fire, which was due to a faulty kerosene heater, spread so quickly that I'm not sure what would have happened had we been asleep.

Over the past couple of weeks, we've had several families lose their homes to house fires. Another family lost a loving father and husband last week in an automobile accident.

I hope you will reflect on those who don't have as much as you do, or who have suffered a recent loss. There's still time to help a local charity, or donate to one of the many food banks here. Perhaps just as important, a phone call to a neighbor who is going through a tough time can mean more than a gift, and it only costs you five minutes of your time to let them know you are thinking about them.

If you have a friend or neighbor who doesn't have a family to celebrate Christmas with, think about inviting them over.

Regardless of your Christmas plans, I hope you spend time thinking about what you have, not what you didn't get. When I look at things in that perspective, I realize I was still a very rich person on Dec. 8, 1983.

Ethan Smith is the editor of the Lake County Leader in Polson.