Bor­der­line Dance Floor

Ian Long arrived at the Bor­der­line Bar and Grill in Thou­sand Oaks, Cal­i­for­nia, on Wednes­day night, Novem­ber 7, at 11:15 p.m. Armed with a .45 cal­iber Glock 21 hand­gun, he shot the secu­ri­ty guard post­ed at the entrance and went inside.

The Bor­der­line is a night spot pop­u­lar with col­lege stu­dents. On Wednes­day nights, it fea­tures west­ern-style line danc­ing. The dance floor was packed with stu­dents from Pep­per­dine Uni­ver­si­ty, Cal­i­for­nia Luther­an Uni­ver­si­ty, and Moor­park Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege.

Long fired into the crowd.

Sgt. Ron Helus

Sergeant Ron Helus, a 29 year vet­er­an of the Ven­tu­ra Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office, was talk­ing to his wife on the phone when a report of an active shoot­er came across his radio. “Hey, I have to han­dle a call,” he said. “I love you. I’ll talk to you lat­er.”

He was the first offi­cer to respond. He charged inside, exchanged gun­fire with Long, and was hit mul­ti­ple times. By the time oth­er offi­cers were able to get inside, Long had killed twelve, wound­ed thir­teen, and turned the gun on him­self.

Sgt. Helus died at the Los Rob­les Region­al Med­ical Cen­ter at 2:00 a.m.

Thurs­day morn­ing, the Sheriff’s Office escort­ed a hearse car­ry­ing his corpse to the Ven­tu­ra coroner’s facil­i­ty. Hun­dreds of peo­ple lined the 134 free­way to pay trib­ute to his hero­ism. Dri­vers in oncom­ing traf­fic stopped, got out of their cars, and watched the pro­ces­sion from the guard rail. Fire­fight­ers and police offi­cers stood on over­pass­es and salut­ed as the hearse passed beneath them.

The Woolsey Fire — Mal­ibu

My wife had a doctor’s appoint­ment that after­noon in Thou­sand Oaks not far from the Bor­der­line. We arrived at 2:00 p.m. The Hill fire sprang up just west of Thou­sand Oaks at 2:03 p.m. Anoth­er fire ignit­ed near Woolsey Canyon Road, about twen­ty miles to the north­east, at 2:24 p.m.

When we left the doctor’s office, smoke cov­ered half the sky. As we pulled up in our dri­ve­way, a jet tanker car­ry­ing fire retar­dant flew low over our house head­ing north.

An hour lat­er, the Fire Depart­ment issued a vol­un­tary evac­u­a­tion notice to our neigh­bor­hood, Hid­den Hills. Our daugh­ter and our son live near­by. We texted back and forth. Every­one was safe. No flames in sight. We chose not to evac­u­ate.

At 6:30 p.m. the Fire Depart­ment issued a manda­to­ry evac­u­a­tion order. We were sur­prised. The Hill fire was ten miles west of us, blow­ing away from Hid­den Hills, and the Woolsey fire had received very lit­tle press cov­er­age so we didn’t believe it was much of a threat. Think­ing the Fire Depart­ment was being over­ly cau­tious, we packed one night’s change of clothes, round­ed up our dogs, and drove east.

Our daugh­ter, who also lives in Hid­den Hills, checked with local hotels. They were already booked with evac­uees, so we drove out to our oth­er daughter’s home on the oth­er side of LA, out of harm’s way. Ten min­utes there con­vinced us that our six dogs weren’t meant to live under one roof. We found hotel rooms in Pasade­na and checked in, expect­ing to return home in the morn­ing.

Bell Canyon

The Woolsey fire turned real bad that night, burn­ing homes in Bell Canyon, a few miles north of Hid­den Hills. Winds with gusts of 70 mph blew embers the size of base­balls into neigh­bor­hoods west of my home, set­ting ablaze Oak Park, Agoura Hills, West­lake Vil­lage, and Thou­sand Oaks. The fire jumped the 134 free­way and burned through the canyons toward the ocean. I watched tele­vised images of Mal­ibu homes burn­ing to the ground with a mix­ture of survivor’s guilt and relief that the fire had spared my neigh­bor­hood.

Fri­day morn­ing, my sense of relief proved to be pre­ma­ture. High winds rekin­dled hot spots in Bell Canyon, set­ting scores of hous­es on fire and blow­ing embers south, direct­ly toward Hid­den Hills. Cal­abasas, where my son lives, came under an emer­gency evac­u­a­tion order. As he drove away, flames licked at hous­es on the edge of his neigh­bor­hood.

Fire­fight­ers

The old Ahman­son Ranch, now a nature pre­serve, bor­ders Hid­den Hills on the west near our house. The Ranch caught fire about noon. One tele­vi­sion sta­tion briefly flashed images of a wall of flames march­ing across the ridge behind our home, and I caught a glimpse of heli­copters and air­planes drop­ping water on a field where I walk my dogs, but mad­den­ing­ly, the cov­er­age shift­ed to oth­er areas and nev­er returned to Hid­den Hills.

That night, reports about the fire gave way to reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled pro­grams. From then on, news cov­er­age of the fire was min­i­mal. I spent a sleep­less night, not know­ing if my home had sur­vived.

Sat­ur­day, the winds calmed and the worst seemed to be over. The media was silent about Hid­den Hills. We assumed no news was good news, but the evac­u­a­tion order was still in effect and we weren’t sure if our homes were intact.

Sun­day morn­ing, I could stand the uncer­tain­ty no longer. I drove to Hid­den Hills and was allowed access to my home. To my great relief, it was safe and sound, but with­in min­utes after I unlocked my front door, the winds kicked up again and a hot spot erupt­ed in West Hills, just north of my house.

Fire engines sped up my street to defend the perime­ter of Hid­den Hills, and I was ordered to evac­u­ate again.

Ahman­son Ranch

With­in min­utes, heli­copters and planes were in the air over West Hills and eight fire engines and crews rushed to the flames. They knocked the fire down in four hours. Res­i­dents of West Hills lined the street and cheered the fire crews as they drove away to the next call.

Winds blew hard Sun­day and Mon­day. The fire­fight­ers tire­less­ly beat down count­less flare-ups. Mon­day night, the Woolsey fire still raged in Mal­ibu, but its threat to inland homes declined.

Tues­day at 9:00 a.m., the evac­u­a­tion orders cov­er­ing Hid­den Hills and my son’s neigh­bor­hood were lift­ed, and we went home.

Hold­ing the Line

That after­noon, I walked out to the bor­der of the Ahman­son Ranch. Its fields were char­coal-black. The brush burned up to the edge of my neighbor’s yard, melt­ing the three-rail white vinyl fence that enclos­es it. We would have lost our home if the fire­fight­ers hadn’t stopped the fire right there. There are no words that do jus­tice to the courage, ded­i­ca­tion, and skill of these men and women. We will be for­ev­er grate­ful to them.

By Tues­day night, the week from hell had come and gone for my fam­i­ly, but for many oth­ers, the suf­fer­ing had just begun. As I write this, the tal­ly of homes destroyed in the Woolsey fire exceeds 1500. In the wake of the dead­ly Camp fire in north­ern Cal­i­for­nia, res­cue work­ers have found almost 100 corpses and hun­dreds more are miss­ing. The con­di­tions there are dire. They believe the search for bod­ies will extend well into 2019.

Sgt. Helus’s Funer­al

Most of the fam­i­lies of those killed in the Bor­der­line shoot­ing had to evac­u­ate their homes the day after the mur­ders. The Tues­day I came home, they began to bury their lost loved ones. Memo­ri­als for the slain went for­ward every day that week. Hun­dreds came to hon­or each vic­tim. Over 4,000 peo­ple attend­ed Sgt. Helus’s funer­al, includ­ing hun­dreds of fire­fight­ers and law enforce­ment per­son­nel, most of whom hadn’t slept for days.

The fol­low­ing week, our fam­i­ly came togeth­er at our Thanks­giv­ing table. In the past, we’ve giv­en thanks for what we have, but this year was dif­fer­ent. While so many fam­i­lies in our com­mu­ni­ty were sift­ing through the ash­es of mis­ery and loss, we could still hug our loved ones and hold them close. So this year, we donat­ed fam­i­ly funds to the vic­tims of the shoot­ing and the fires, and we gave thanks for the only thing that mat­tered to us when we thought we might lose every­thing: the safe­ty and health of those we love.

Dona­tions to the Ven­tu­ra Coun­ty Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion for the vic­tims of the Bor­der­line mur­ders and the Hill and Woolsey fires can be made here: https://vccf.org/. The North Val­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion is col­lect­ing dona­tions for the Camp Fire vic­tims here: https://www.nvcf.org/fund/camp-fire-evacuation-relief-fund/.

1870 Pas­sen­ger Train

About fif­teen years ago, I got inter­est­ed in ances­try research. At a fam­i­ly reunion, I told every­one I intend­ed to trace our fam­i­ly tree as far back as I could go. One of my nephews gave me the hairy eye­ball. “That’s not a good idea,” he said. “You may find out things we don’t want to know.”

I thought his con­cern was ridicu­lous and ignored his warn­ing. About a month lat­er, I found records on Ancestry.com about William Odor, who turned out to be our most famous fam­i­ly mem­ber by far. Born in Illi­nois in 1844, he gained nation­al noto­ri­ety dur­ing the sum­mer of 1870. The sto­ry of his rise to coun­try-wide promi­nence begins in the spring, nor­mal­ly a sea­son of hope and opti­mism.

On May 12, 1870, a Mis­souri Pacif­ic Rail­road pas­sen­ger train pulled into Eure­ka, Mis­souri, before dawn. It was due to arrive in St. Louis at 6:00 a.m. A freight train left St. Louis about the same time, head­ed for Eure­ka. In those days rail­road com­pa­nies put down a sin­gle track and trains trav­eled in both direc­tions on it. When two trains were sched­uled to trav­el toward each oth­er, one of the trains was required to pull off onto side rails, which were spaced at inter­vals along the sin­gle track. Under the Mis­souri Pacif­ic rule, pas­sen­ger trains had the right of way over freight trains, and freight trains were respon­si­ble for giv­ing it to them.

1870 Freight Train

The dis­patch­er in St. Louis told the freight train’s con­duc­tor, William Odor, that the freight train could pro­ceed toward Eure­ka for thir­ty min­utes, but after that, it would have to give way to the pas­sen­ger train by pulling off on a side spur.

The pas­sen­ger train’s engi­neer, J.P. Jack­son, eased his train out of the Eure­ka sta­tion a lit­tle after 5:00 a.m. About a mile and a half into the trip, the pas­sen­ger train entered a sharp turn, and Jack­son saw the puff­ing smoke­stack of a freight train bar­rel­ing around the bluff at full speed toward him. He hit the brakes and reversed engines.

The freight train’s engi­neer, Joseph Tra­cy, tried to brake his train, too, but there was no hope of stop­ping an engine of that pow­er at that speed pulling that much weight.

Sin­gle Track Train Wreck

The engi­neers and con­duc­tors on both trains jumped free just before they col­lid­ed. The two loco­mo­tives reared up on their back wheels like wild stal­lions fight­ing one anoth­er. The impact of the crash com­pressed the pas­sen­ger train’s six cars into its loco­mo­tive like the folds of an accor­dion, shred­ding them into strips of met­al and wood. The engines then slid down an embank­ment, drag­ging the cars and pas­sen­gers with them. Corpses, body parts, and injured sur­vivors lit­tered the tracks and embank­ment. Nine­teen peo­ple were killed. Thir­ty were injured, eigh­teen of them with ampu­tat­ed limbs or col­lapsed inter­nal organs.

Jack­son and the pas­sen­ger train’s con­duc­tor did their best to help the sur­vivors. The freight train’s engi­neer and con­duc­tor, Tra­cy and Odor, ran away. As best I can tell, Tra­cy was nev­er found. Odor was tracked down the fol­low­ing day and detained.

A coroner’s inquest deter­mined that he was at fault. As the con­duc­tor of the freight train, it was his job to keep the train on sched­ule. He ignored the dispatcher’s instruc­tions that he could run no more than thir­ty min­utes before pulling over to give the right of way to the pas­sen­ger train. The freight train had been on the track 45 min­utes when it hit the pas­sen­ger train. Odor’s defense was that there must have been some­thing wrong with his watch, the pas­sen­ger train conductor’s watch, or the clock at the St. Louis sta­tion. The coroner’s jury didn’t buy it. They found him cul­pa­ble; the pros­e­cu­tor indict­ed him for mul­ti­ple counts of manslaugh­ter; and the court jailed him pend­ing tri­al.

News­pa­pers all across the coun­try ran sto­ries about the train wreck and its after­math for months fol­low­ing the col­li­sion. Every arti­cle in every news­pa­per high­light­ed William Odor’s wan­ton reck­less­ness as the cause of the tragedy. Punchinel­lo, a New York week­ly satir­i­cal mag­a­zine, called for the death penal­ty (prob­a­bly tongue-in-cheek), mak­ing a pun with my family’s name. “(W)e fer­vent­ly desire to have this ODOR neu­tral­ized . . . with strych­nine.”

Pres­i­dent John Tyler

Sigh.

Mer­ci­ful­ly for me and William Odor’s oth­er descen­dants, the press grew weary of the train wreck by the end of the sum­mer and his ignominy fad­ed into the mist of his­to­ry. I could find no records about the rest of his life. I don’t even know what hap­pened to him in the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, but giv­en the noto­ri­ety of the case and the num­ber of deaths and injuries, it’s like­ly he served a long stretch in a Mis­souri prison.

For years I searched for some coun­ter­bal­anc­ing hero­ic ances­tor in the fam­i­ly tree. One guy was a fifth cousin of Daniel Boone, but if you do much ances­try research, you’ll find that almost every­one alive today in the Unit­ed States can claim some dis­tant con­nec­tion to the famous pio­neer, the rea­son being that almost every mem­ber of the Boone fam­i­ly spawned ten to twen­ty kids.

Oth­er than that, all I could dig up was a third cousin twice removed from Pres­i­dent John Tyler’s sec­ond wife. Tyler was William Hen­ry Harrison’s Vice Pres­i­dent. When Har­ri­son died of pneu­mo­nia, Tyler became the tenth Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. He was wild­ly unpop­u­lar. The first impeach­ment res­o­lu­tion ever intro­duced in Con­gress against a Pres­i­dent was aimed at him. His own par­ty, the Whigs, reject­ed him when he tried to run for reelec­tion, and most his­to­ri­ans rank him along­side James Buchanan and Mil­lard Fill­more as a bot­tom-feed­er among U.S. Pres­i­dents.

So my family’s only pathet­ic shot at genealog­i­cal redemp­tion for William Odor’s Mis­souri slaugh­ter is a ten­u­ous con­nec­tion to one of the crap­pi­est pres­i­dents who ever lived.

William the Con­queror

But that’s not the worst of it. I made the mis­take of research­ing my wife’s fam­i­ly his­to­ry, too. One of her branch­es goes back to William the Con­queror. Her ances­tor took care of William’s hors­es on the bat­tle­field. Her tree has roy­al Plan­ta­genet fam­i­ly Eng­lish lords and ladies hang­ing all over it. One of her fore­fa­thers, nine gen­er­a­tions back, was the brains behind the Vir­ginia Com­pa­ny which financed and found­ed the Jamestown Colony. Anoth­er one was an ear­ly Jamestown set­tler, a big hero who fought off scores of Powhatan war­riors dur­ing the Indi­an Mas­sacre of 1622 that wiped out more than half the colonists. There’s an island on the James Riv­er near Rich­mond named after that branch of her fam­i­ly. There’s more, but I don’t want to talk about it.

For the half-cen­tu­ry we’ve been mar­ried, most every­one who knows my wife and me has seen fit to remark soon­er or lat­er that I mar­ried up. To main­tain mar­i­tal bliss, I’ve kept my mouth shut over the many years, while secret­ly telling myself they were wrong.

Rougned Odor

Now this.

I should have lis­tened to my nephew.

Post Script: Maybe there’s still hope. I just found out there’s a Venezue­lan named Rougned Odor, who plays sec­ond base for the Texas Rangers. I can’t pro­nounce his first name and he’s only bat­ting .250, but hey, he’s in their start­ing line­up. There’s def­i­nite­ly a fam­i­ly resem­blance between us, don’t you think? The ears are a match for sure.

Rev. T. W. Oder (1918 — 2012)

My dad was born 100 years ago on this day in 1918 in Appo­mat­tox, Vir­ginia, near the McLean house where Lee sur­ren­dered to Grant a half cen­tu­ry ear­li­er.

He had a pret­ty rough child­hood. His par­ents divorced when he was a baby and he grew up bounc­ing back and forth between them.

His moth­er caught tuber­cu­lo­sis when he was in grade school. After his death, we found a tin box in his bed­room with let­ters she sent him from the hos­pi­tal, try­ing to put a bright face on her con­di­tion. She told him how much she missed him and promised they’d be togeth­er soon. She died when he was twelve.

He grad­u­at­ed from high school dur­ing the depres­sion. There were no jobs in Appo­mat­tox, and severe asth­ma dis­qual­i­fied him from mil­i­tary ser­vice. The mil­i­tary instal­la­tions in Virginia’s tide­wa­ter area were hir­ing in the run-up to World War II, so he moved to York­town and got a job in the Navy Mine Depot’s main­te­nance depart­ment.

Mom worked there, too, and Dad fell for her. She was sev­en­teen when they eloped, run­ning across the state line to North Car­oli­na, which didn’t require her par­ents’ con­sent to tie the knot.

Mom tele­phoned her father (my Papaw) in the mid­dle of the night and broke the news. At my par­ents’ six­ti­eth wed­ding anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion, I asked my uncle, her old­est broth­er, how that call went down. He said Papaw looked like he want­ed to kill some­one.

That some­one was Dad, I guess, but I nev­er saw any evi­dence of Papaw’s hard feel­ings. Dad’s tough child­hood left him inse­cure and anx­ious, but Papaw always encour­aged him. “You can do any­thing if you’ve got Willy on your side,” he used to say to Dad. “Willy” was will pow­er.

With Willy on his side, Dad left his job at the Depot and opened his own Hud­son car deal­er­ship, where he found his first great pas­sion, sell­ing cars. He sold so many Hud­sons that the Hud­son Com­pa­ny want­ed to lever­age his tal­ent by mov­ing him to Hager­stown, Mary­land, to man­age a much big­ger deal­er­ship.

Church of the Light­ed Win­dow

Mom agreed to the move only if Dad promised to go to church in Hager­stown. He had stead­fast­ly refused to attend Sun­day ser­vices up to that point, but he caved in to her demand and we piled every­thing we had in a mov­ing van and head­ed up there.

At first, Dad groused every step of the way to the Church of the Light­ed Win­dow, but a few months into it, he stopped com­plain­ing. A year lat­er, he became the church lay leader. Soon after­wards, he went on a week­end reli­gious retreat where he found his sec­ond great pas­sion, this one so all-con­sum­ing that it turned our lives upside down.

When Dad came home from the retreat, he dropped his suit­case on the floor, beamed at Mom, and announced, “Hon­ey, I’m going to be a preach­er!”

Shocked and not so pleased, Mom said, “But all I want­ed you to do was go to church.”

The keynote speak­er at the retreat was a Methodist bish­op with Parkinson’s dis­ease, who spoke about his life of ser­vice. At the end of his talk, the bish­op raised his hand and called to the altar those who want­ed to com­mit their lives to Christ. On his death bed fifty years after the event, Dad said he could still see the bishop’s pale palsied hand flut­ter­ing in the air like the bro­ken wing of a white dove. That hand grabbed him by the heart and called him to preach the Word.

Mount Mori­ah Albe­mar­le Cir­cuit

A car sales­man in his mid-thir­ties with a wife and three sons, no edu­ca­tion beyond high school, and no way to pay for col­lege and sem­i­nary, he was an improb­a­ble can­di­date for the min­istry. The only path to the pul­pit open to him was a long hard slog through a seem­ing­ly end­less swamp of cor­re­spon­dence school cours­es while he worked full-time sell­ing cars.

He spent five years study­ing course mate­ri­als he received in the mail, tak­ing tests and writ­ing essays, and send­ing them back to the course admin­is­tra­tors for eval­u­a­tion. In 1960, the Methodist Church final­ly accept­ed him pro­vi­sion­al­ly as a “sup­ply pas­tor.” That sta­tus enti­tled him to be con­sid­ered for assign­ment to a church only after all the ful­ly qual­i­fied min­is­ters had been giv­en a post.

In 1961, the Methodist hier­ar­chy gave Dad his first appoint­ment, a four-church charge known as the Albe­mar­le Cir­cuit, two church­es with 100 mem­bers and two with less than 50, and we moved to White Hall, Vir­ginia, a rur­al town at the foot of the Blue Ridge moun­tains.  

Brown’s Cove Albe­mar­le Cir­cuit

I thought Dad would almost cer­tain­ly fail. He had no for­mal train­ing in pub­lic speak­ing or coun­sel­ing, and the work­load was crush­ing.  

The first Sun­day we were there, he met with a young sin­gle moth­er who was sui­ci­dal because her hus­band had been killed in an acci­dent. Dad moved her into the par­son­age, and she lived with us for a week. She was in her six­ties the last time I saw her.

Menin­gi­tis killed the infant of a young cou­ple. He brought them through their grief, and they went on to have four more chil­dren.

A man in a posi­tion of trust molest­ed a teenage boy, plung­ing him into chron­ic depres­sion. Dad helped him heal his wounds and move on with his life.

These are the ear­ly sto­ries. Hun­dreds more fol­lowed.

After attend­ing night school at UVA and com­plet­ing anoth­er bar­rage of cor­re­spon­dence cours­es, Dad was ordained as a full-fledged min­is­ter. He served six church­es over a twen­ty-five year career. In his late six­ties, he tried to retire, but it didn’t take. He vol­un­teered to pas­tor a church that couldn’t afford a full-time min­is­ter and preached there for almost a decade. In his eight­ies, he asked for an appoint­ment clos­er to his home. They gave him a lit­tle church in its death throes, its con­gre­ga­tion down to about ten stal­warts. He revived it, build­ing it up to 50 reg­u­lar atten­dees.

He had a stroke when he was 86. One month lat­er, he returned to the lit­tle church’s pul­pit, this time in a wheel chair, and Chris­t­ian-sol­diered on until old age broke him down.

No longer able to preach and bed-rid­den, he told us he was ready to go to heav­en.

I sat by his bed, and we talked about old times. “How did you do it?” I asked him. “How did you over­come all the obsta­cles?”

He paused for a long time. “Deter­mi­na­tion,” he said. Papaw’s Willy, I thought. “And my Faith.”

He slept almost all the time his last few days. The hos­pice lady said he was prepar­ing to die. Mom rolled her wheel­chair up to his bed and took his hand. “It’s okay, Tom­my. You can go on now.” I don’t know if he heard her, but he let go soon after that.

Four Methodist min­is­ters preached at his funer­al. We sang In the Gar­den, his favorite hymn. Its stan­zas are about walk­ing and talk­ing with Jesus in a rose gar­den. One of the many Methodist preach­ers Dad had shep­herd­ed into the min­istry end­ed the funer­al ser­vice by say­ing that Dad had been walk­ing and talk­ing with Jesus those last days when he was asleep. “When they’d walked a long way up the road,” he said, “Jesus told Tom­my, ‘You know, my place is clos­er than yours. Let’s just go on up there togeth­er.’”

If heav­en is a place where your dreams are ful­filled, I know what my dad’s doing right now. There’s a lit­tle coun­try church with sun­light com­ing through stained glass win­dows to paint rain­bow col­ors on the pine pews. The sanc­tu­ary is full. Mom’s play­ing a hymn on the piano. When the singing’s done, she moves from the

The Last Pul­pit

piano bench to the front pew and sits beside me and my broth­ers, all dressed in our Sun­day best.

Dad stands and takes his place at the pul­pit, back straight, voice strong.

Rest in Peace, Dad.