MARK'S HOUSE IS GONE. HEATHER'S HOUSE IS GONE. EDDIE'S HOUSE IS GONE.

When a hometown burns down, how do we account for so much loss?

- By Joshuah Bearman

On the street in Altadena in the 1980s.

When a hometown burns down, how do we account for so much loss? We used to park on the shaded lane across from the mountains and sneak past a cliffside house, through a fence, and between some brush to perch on a concrete slab that overlooked the canyon. There, above the narrow watershed, we drank peach schnapps, listening to the Cure, or Prince, or Eric B. & Rakim, and fooled around. Beneath our feet was some unidentified infrastructure, but “the lookout,” as we called it (obvious, I know), offered a glorious view. Beyond the mouth of the canyon, sharp ridges followed the tight turns of Eaton Wash. Somewhere back there were waterfalls. If the moon was out, the river rocks glowed. Along the highest peak were the lights of Mt. Wilson, 4,000 feet overhead, where one of the world’s great observatories sits. When the 100-inch telescope was built in 1917, the nearly five-ton lens cast from French bottle glass was carted up a dirt road. If you followed our line of sight past Mt. Wilson to the northeast, there was the Mojave Desert and then Death Valley, 250 miles away.

That’s where we found teenage refuge, trying not to wince while shooting capfuls from sticky bottles of dated booze pilfered from our parents’ liquor cabinets. I must admit we probably left a few bottles behind. We were horny children. For romantic effect, the lights of the observatory blinked in slow rhythm above. It was up on that ridge, as I'd learned in AP Physics, that Edwin Hubble had discovered the universe was expanding, using some glass plates and emulsion. This was not top of mind. Far more important was making out with Elizabeth Dolinski. Down below, the trail crossed a bridge, ascended the opposite side of the canyon, and led into the wilderness. That's where, in the dark, you could just barely see a series of delicate silhouettes—the steel lattice- work of some very high-voltage power lines strung aloft.