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Wildfires took Altadena man’s neighborhood and his Corvette dream – Jobsmaa.com

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She was sleek as the night wind, painted red, peanut-butter interior, a tune-port motor with a factory four-speed.

Oh, man, said Danny Robinson 1986 Corvette Could have done. He had been working on her for a while and ordered a Ignition switch and waiting for registration. He was a wrench-turn from being road ready, and Robinson, a well-known tinkerer on Harriet Street in Altadena, could imagine himself behind the wheel, flying westward over the San Gabriels that evening. He ran under the crows.

“It was my dream car,” he said. “It's gone.”

forest fire Eden Canyon This month was terrifying, swift and intense. They took him to Robinson's house. He took him 1966 Pontiac GTO. Picked up a 1962 Impala. Destroyed by his father's old Ford ranch, it was preserved as a reminder of the patriarch's family, driven from Mississippi and bringing his wife, sons and daughter south from Jim Crow to the California foothills half a century ago. But nothing hurt the Corvette like losing, tires melted, windshields shattered, and sleek lines twisted into a charred puzzle of metal and ash.

A red car with white splotches in a driveway

Danny Robinson has a collection of classic cars parked at his home in Altadena, including a 1966 Pontiac GTO and a 1986 Corvette. He lost them all in the Eton fire.

(Danny Robinson)

Robinson looked at the ruins like an animal dragged from a battle. But, he said, a man should know his blessings and move forward. Enough preachers have told him that over the years. It's a test of the spirit you have to do yourself: “Live for nothing. If you live in things, you cannot progress. It clutters your mind,” said Robinson, 63, a large man wrapped in a musical lilt. “You eat your dinner and then think about space, moving forward.”

Many of the houses on Robinson's block are gone, including the house of his former neighbor, the drummer Kenny Elliott, who died of cancer last year and played Lou Rawls, Ray Charles And Ella Fitzgerald. Robinson's friend, Danny Shigemori, who has lived on the street for 55 years and runs a landscaping business, also lost his place. So did the young man whose face rose from behind the charred wall.

“Hey, neighbor,” he shouted to Robinson from the rubble.

“How are you doing there?” Robinson yelled back.

“Looking for some of my mother's things,” said the young man, shuffling behind the wall and disappearing.

Robinson smiled.

“I've known that boy since he was this big,” he said, crossing his arms like he was holding a baby. “There were still a lot of kids here. I saw kids growing up all over the street. They went from pushing toy lawnmowers to driving big trucks. But it came when it was almost like a retirement community. Everyone grew up and moved away. Nobody had kids anymore. It got quiet at night.”

Danny Robinson saw a burnt-out car on the road near the wreckage.

Danny Robinson lost his house and car collection in the Eaton fire: “Don't live for anything,” he said. “If you live in things, you cannot progress. It will clutter your mind. “

(Alan J. Shaben/Los Angeles Times)

Robinson walked through the most haunted rooms of his vanished home. There was the bedroom, there was the kitchen, the living room, then the driveway and his destroyed cars, including a Corvette, worth $45,000, and a Pontiac, worth about $20,000. Equipment crates, jacks, free weights and a bench press were scattered nearby in the sunlight, not far from where he wrote his family's names in cement: Charlie (Dad), Minnie (“Mom, like a mouse”), sister Valerie and brothers Henry and Ronnie. .

A son separation, Charlie Robinson first came to California, sending for his family members, who traveled across the country by train after he was hired as a truck driver in the early 1960s. They started in Pasadena and moved to Altadena in 1979. “My last year of high school,” said Robinson, who after graduation would become a mechanic and construction contractor, working weekends and evenings on cars on West Harriet Street. Her father returned to Jackson, Miss., but Minnie stayed with her children until she left home — except for Danny, who lived with her mother, Escape from the flames 8th January with her at around 3am.

“My mom used to take people,” said Robinson, who is divorced. “If someone needed a place to stay, my mom would give them a room so they could get on their feet. My cousin came here from Mississippi, and my mom gave her a room. She became a nurse, got her own job, found her own place. And then Her boyfriend came and went to school for truck drivers. They made enough money to move back to Mississippi.”

“My mother,” he said, “did that to a lot of people.”

Robinson said he wasn't here to split the cinders, not today. It will be done later, garbage and Toxins are destroyed And he can get contractors to rebuild with insurance money. He spoke instead of Lost Things: A Collection of 400 Miniatures Hot wheels Cars and pictures of him with his uncle Cleveland Green, The offensive lineman for the Miami Dolphins in the 1980s once called Robinson into the team's locker room.

“He's blocking Don Marino, ” Robinson said. He paused and looked at the inexplicable gray at the leg. “Those pictures are gone, but I enjoy talking about things that were once in this house.”

He also remembered other things, things you couldn't keep, but that you knew and were part of the neighborhood's story.

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California-Danny Robinson had many classic cars in Altadena

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Altadena in California-Danny Robinson had many classic cars on par

1. Danny Robinson has a collection of classic cars parked at his home in Altadena, including a 1986 Corvette.
2. Corvette value, 000 45,000.
(Danny Robinson)

Robinson said: “Every evening just before dark, the crows start migrating in packs of 20 and 30 and start flying. I counted them. Same time every day. Once, a flock of hawks came. I have never seen that before in my life. They migrated westward. Another time there was a group of buzzards in my tree. Six of them. Wingspan is 6 feet. Sit here in this tree here. I have seen a lot of things here. “

He pointed to his father's burnt spot. He didn't want the man who raised him — he died years ago — to be forgotten: “So many memories in that truck,” he said. “My father brought us here for a better life, and he gave it to us. “

He looked on his way to Shigemori, who was circling the remains of the house he had fallen from.

“Crown, crane,” inquired Robinson.

An overhead view of dozens of different colored Mattel Hot Wheels cars.

Among the many things Danny Robinson lost on fire was a set of Mattel Hot Wheels.

(Danny Robinson)

That's the call they've made in each other's backyards over the years. It's beer time, which means it's time to talk as the last bits of day turn to night. No beer on this day.

Shigemori walked away. He said he lived in this street, and didn't know where else to go; He would be like a homing pigeon, throw him into the sky and he would return the wheel. As the fire raged through the neighborhood and toward the houses, Shigemori, a slight man with a gray mustache, the so-called “rebellion of the block,” grabbed a garden hose and tried to stop them.

“The flames came up to the fence,” he said. “The wind was really strong. I tried to go back inside to get my wallet, but the fire was in the house. Windows were popping. I ended up leaving the neighborhood.”

He stared into the distance, past empty chimneys, a bright red — miraculously — baby wagon, and a table where men played dominoes. Why did one house burn and another did not? what Wind variations, What are the chances of this happening again?

“I don't plan to move,” Shigemori said. “This neighborhood is a family. We were devastated. We had a meeting the other night. We told each other that we would always be family. We told each other, 'Don't sell.' “

Robinson walked to a blackened tree, where Eliot gave him a cymbal. It was engulfed in flames and cracked. Robinson pinged it.

“Man, I loved playing Kenny,” he said. “I put this here to remember him. It hurt to see him when he went to hospitality. “

A quiet one. The sky was clear, blue, hard to believe so much destruction.

The National Guard There were corners where health workers handed out masks, churches heard prayers, and places where salvageable burned materials were placed. Robinson said his 83-year-old mother was visiting family in Mississippi for a few weeks while he and his sister sorted through paperwork and other details that would begin the ordeal of raising a new home.

Danny Robinson examines the remains of his dream car, a 1986 Corvette.

Danny Robinson examines the remains of his dream car, a 1986 Corvette.

(Alan J. Shaben/Los Angeles Times)

Robinson had a brain aneurysm that killed him a few years ago. “I cried in front of the doctor when he told me the swelling had gone down.” It feels like that now, waiting for him to heal, and when he returned to the neighborhood alone for the first time two days ago, he felt like the last man on earth.

“If I hadn't lived here so long,” where would I be? “I would have thought that,” I would have thought. ”

He walked down the driveway toward the backyard. Everyone in the neighborhood knew what was up, they knew the summer heat was relaxed against the evening breeze. Pontiac is a classic. People would ask him about it. Over the years the Impala has been chopped up for parts for other cars. He looked at the Corvette. It was unrecognizable, but not to his eye. He said he'll never get it on the road, but he's closer to his dream. Many men don't get it.

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