There is a fire raging in Santa Catalina right now. This breaks my heart. You see, Santa Catalina is an island off the Southern California coast, and home to my childhood sleepaway camp.

(my parents weren’t content with a mountain – oh no. I got shipped off to an island. heh.)

The island has a town, Avalon. There’s historical structures. But it’s mostly just wilderness. A best friend from High School, Christina – whom I’ve sadly lost touch with – her dad had a little house there. Don’t know if he still has it.

It seems as if all my childhood haunts are in danger lately – Griffith Park, the zoo, and where I used to ride ponies, and now Camp Fox.

It’s very disheartening.

The fire has burned at least 4,000-acres, but that number could go up when crews assess the damage once the sun comes up… a few homes have burned, as well as a commercial building and several warehouse structures. Some 1,200-homes have been evacuated… By early Friday morning, about 3,300 people had been evacuated from the island, most of them visitors… 1,700 people remained, excluding firefighters… As of last night, the fire had destroyed one large commercial storage building, multiple outbuildings and one single-family home, Brown said.

And so… My photo is…

Me at the age of 12 in 1987 at Camp Fox.