A hazy shade of Oregon

I lived in a small isolated Eastern Oregon community of about 8,000 people that was barely spared massive destruction in 1973 when the wind changed at the last second after a roaring firestorm jumped the last fire break. It burned within two blocks of my home.

When the Chelsea fire made national news several days running a couple months later, a bunch of kids in my school were kind of obsessed with it. We were all kind of warped about big fires after what we went through.

It was baffling and kind of incomprehensible - a forest fire in the city? How can a city just burn like a wildfire???

That was the year that the local cinema pulled Bambi due to the forest fire scene freaking everyone out. This was long before the impact of natural disaster trauma was understood, particularly in kids. What adults found morbid was just us processing our terrifying experience.

Being from Chelsea and from a long time Chelsea family it is amazing how much that fire still lingers in the city even among people like myself who were not alive to witness it and those who know moved here not knowing it ever existed.

Which is your favorite HAZY SHADE OF WINTER version?

I adore the original, but Susanna Hoffs has my heart forever.