Wood River families will need to wait a lot longer before another weekend to equal the variety and fun of this week's "Kick Ash Bash" comes along.
Beginning Friday and continuing through Sunday, the valley will be jumping with an assortment of festivities—on the ground and in the air—to benefit and thank firefighters, law enforcement and volunteers who subdued the enormous Castle Rock Fire and calmed the community during its unprecedented crisis.
The full schedule of events starts on Page C1 in today's Mountain Express.
Communities everywhere that have come through wrenching natural disasters find it to be part of the normalizing process to celebrate their experiences and show gratitude for the Good Samaritans who rushed to their aid and comfort with a community-wide celebration.
Since the valley has not in modern history faced such a potential disaster and come together so quickly as during the Castle Rock blaze, the "Kick Ash Bash" is something more than fun 'n' games. It's a way to mark a moment in history in a way larger than our handmade thank-you signs. The event will express sincere appreciation for the exhausting, 'round-the-clock heroism of nameless, faceless firefighters who prevented loss of a single life or a single structure to a fire dubbed the nation's worst during its two-week fury.
It will also be a time when people who may have been strangers can meet again and share common experiences during the fire and create a new neighborliness between long-timers and newcomers in our growing community.
