It was in 1965 when I was 6 years old that my family moved to Elmont. It was a wonderful place to grow up. There were lots of kids, great schools and we had a big yard. Having grown up a city kid, my father, Nicholas Denaro, believed that grass was not just to look at, but that children were meant to play on it. We played games and badminton there. A white fence separated our backyard from a small wood. My friends and I enjoyed jumping the fence and climbing trees.

My father had the most amazing hand. He could fix anything. He gave those amazing hands to his son, my younger brother, Frank, who also became handy around the house. But my father saved his green fingers for me. He grew flowers, tomatoes, strawberries and figs and he shared his love of gardening with me.

Fourteen years ago, my husband and I went to a local nursery and bought a fig tree for Dad for Father's Day. My mother, Bridget Denaro, called it the best gift I could have given him. He planted it exactly in the middle of the front yard.

He loved that tree and enjoyed delicious figs every year, except just after Sandy hit in 2012. He was so disappointed when cold weather just after the superstorm froze all the remaining figs.

In 2015, my father died of lung cancer at 97. We sold our family home of 61 years last year. We left behind Dad's tree, full of figs waiting to ripen. We briefly considered taking it with us, but decided that his Father's Day fig tree belonged in Elmont. The new owners generously allowed me to take some branches so that I could have a precious reminder of my much-loved father and the Elmont home.

Red Adair became “the man to call” if you wanted a fire in an oil well put out, a task that was extremely dangerous and difficult.

One of Red Adair’s most dangerous jobs was in 1962. He and his men put out a natural gas fire in the Sahara Desert in Algeria. The fire had been burning for six months. The fire was so fierce that American astronaut John Glenn could see it from space as he orbited Earth and the sand around the fire had melted into glass from the extreme heat. This famous fire was called the “Devil’s Cigarette Lighter”.

Adair’s success with the big fire and earlier well fires captured the imagination of the American film industry. In 1968, Hollywood made an action film called “Hellfighters” which was roughly based on events in Red Adair’s life. Adair said one of the best honors in the world was to have John Wayne play him in a movie.

In 1988, Adair troubleshot what was possibly the world’s worst ocean accident at the Piper Alpha oil platform in the North Sea. Not only did Red Adair and his team have to put out the fires but they also had to deal with winds blowing at more than one hundred and twenty kilometers an hour, as well as the sea which was at least twenty meters high.

In March of 1991, Red Adair went to Kuwait to put out about seven hundred Kuwaiti fires following the Persian Gulf War. His efforts saved millions of liters of oil. Some experts say the operation also helped prevent an environmental tragedy.

Red Adair died at 89. Many Americans remember him as a very brave man. He lived his life troubleshooting danger. He was known for risking his own life to save others.