2011年10月25日星期二

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My sister had opened her eyes (far wider than I thought physically possible) during the Wrath-of-God moment, and we just stared at each other for a minute.My dad broke the silence by saying, "Nothin' really to worry about unless you see a funnel cloud."FunnelNIKE FREE TILBUD, cloud? I thought. I glance over at my sister for a sanity check, but she had her eyes screwed shut.Although it was definitely against family protocol to make comments on my dad's driving, a sense of self preservation came over me, and I ventured a comment in the calmest voice I could muster, "Dad... They're a little like ticks."Well, I knew about ticks from ColoradNike Shox NZ Femmeo. No mountains. I felt that I could withstand any summer weather.Of course my dad did mention something called "humidity." This was a totally foreign concept to me. Sure enough. One year when I was a budding teenager (too young to drive, but old enough to be horribly embarrassed to be seen with my parents) my dad was asked to attend Southern Illinois University at Carbondale to take continuing education classes. maybe sinners just naturally congregate in trailer parks or something.The next day, my dad thought it would be good for us to see the cabin where Abe Lincoln grew up. Then, indeed, the real rain started. My dad grew up in Ohio, so he was familiar with the area. We'll just put some of your mom's nail polish on them.""What does that do?" I asked hopefully."Oh, it suffocates them, and they die," my dad said as he was lighting up his pipe again."They suffocate?" I asked. You could see their tiny butts sticking out, so they were easy to remove."Dad," I said. his expression hadn't changed a whit, and he was driving with just one hand while relighting his pipe with the other.My mom, my sister and I had all stopped breathing (which is a gross exaggeration of what physically happens in this humid hellhole under the best of circumstances). In Colorado, I was quite used to wandering about in the forest, so I wasn't a bit concerned about getting lost. Since the sessions would last most of the summer, he decided it would be nice to take the whole family along. The bad part came as we were heading for Carbondale. My dad told me it could get pretty warm back there in the summer, but I was used to the blast of hot air that you got from rolling down the window during the continuous Phoenix summer heat waves. I began to notice some very large, very dark, very ugly clouds forming above us. I discovered that all around my waist were little red bumps. We didn't really have "humidity" in Phoenix. Straight out of OZ. I could only see as far as the power lines on the side of the road.I glanced over at my dad. "You mean they're completely buried inside me?Chaussures Asics Femme" I was about to be sick."Yea," he said. I imagined her saying to him, "I don't care what you think, Mr. "Then what?""They go away," he said."Go away? To where?""Your body absorbs them."Now I knew I was going to be seriously sick. It's heading away from us," my dad replied.As I watched it move away from us, I was struck with the thought that when God decides to do his wrath thing on sinners, he's pretty indiscriminate about who meets his untimely end. The locals call it "weather." As I said earlier, I found out it's what keeps them from getting bored during the summer. Even the roads weren't curvy. I guess that meant that the huge amounts of sweat that you generated all summer would evaporate and leave you cooler. Pretty soon, my dad said, "Oh, there's one," and pointed straight ahead and a little to the left with his pipe. I, however, had grown up west of the continental divide (Colorado and Phoenix) safely protected by that God-given barrier from all things eastern - and to my mind... How could they be worse than what we just came through? Should I worry about one? I began nervously scanning the skies for funnel clouds. What kind of a Hell-on-Earth place was this Illinois? Bugs that bury themselves in your skin, rain like a waterfall, lightning strikes right next to the road. Pretty soon continuous bolts of lightning flashed between them and rain began pouring down, not in sheets, but more like one continuous sheet, like driving through a waterfall. The family car was the only choice. "It's no big deal. His only concession to this violent act of God was to drop his speed from 78 to 75. In Illinois, my dad pointed out, you sweated just as much, but nothing evaporated. With all the rain, I wasn't sure how anyone could see a funnel cloud or anything for that matter. It was more like moving upstream in a river than driving through rain. My only thought was that this all happened so long ago that there was probably a lot less math to learn, so what was the big deal? Besides, I figured that his mother probably nagged him as much as mine did. This is nothing. I couldn't see a thing out of the front window either, and to my horror, I noticed that he hadn't reduced his speed at all.I could tell that my mom, a Denver native, and not used to this crazed Midwestern way of driving, was tensing up. Well... future Great Emancipator. There it was. Pure adrenalin shot through my body as I watched the lightning flash down the power lines (barely keeping up with dad's Newport) then crash into a transformer creating a huge ball of fire that ultimately lost the race with my dad as it fizzled out.Slowly as though I was in a dream, I looked over at my dad. I was in the back seat on the passenger's side looking out at endless fields of something green - all in hypnotic neat rows. It was a beautiful day as we drove out to the site. I looked out my window again while the rain picked up an intensity that I would never have thought possible. Oh, sure, I was taking in large quantities of air, but it was so full of this "humidity" thing that there just weren't any oxygen molecules. But, how did these people keep from getting totally bored just living here? I found out later that the weather took care of that.As we moved into Illinois I began experiencing a total inability to breathe. He was totally unperturbed - calmly smoking his pipe... I became fixated on the only solid object I could see, those power lines next to the car.As I watched them flash buy, suddenly a bolt of lightning hit the lines right next to our car. Penny! After a while, people won't even bother picking them up anymore because you'll be the president who couldn't do math!"At that point, I decided that I'd like to go for a walk in the woods. it's raining pretty hard. you better shut your pie hole and get to scribbling on that shovel or your face'll end up on the bottom of my shoe rather than on that penny you're always talking about. My dad's new '63 Chrysler Newport was humming along at its usual clip of about 78. My dad gave me the expected lecture about how Abe had to read his books on the hearth (which was still there), and do his math on the back of a shovel. "What the hell are Chiggers?""Oh, they're a little insect that burrows into your skin and feeds on your blood. I showed them to my dad , who casually said, "Oh, you've just picked up some Chiggers, that's all.""Chiggers," I replied. I began to think about "humidity" as the trout's revenge.But, that wasn't really the bad part. It was weird to me. I was gasping like one of the rainbow trouts I use to pull out of the clean, cool Colorado rivers. They, however, just buried their heads into your skin. Shouldn't you slow down a bit?"My dad said, "Relax, son. I'll tell you this for free, buster... I had a nice hike in the very dense and beautiful woods, and it was very relaxing.Later that evening at the motel, I began noticing that I was itching like crazy under my waistband. It sounded disgusting.After a very long drive through the desert and over the Rocky Mountains we began crossing the plains states. No hills. humming one of the little tuneless songs that constantly seemed to rattle around in his head. It looked like the finger of a wrathful God destroying everything it touched."Shouldn't we STOP or something?" I yelled."Naw. My immediate thought was that I had gotten into some poison ivy. It was always called a "dry" heat. Also, the sum total of comfort systems for most cars back in those days consisted of heaters for the winter and roll-down windows for the summer. You mean Tornado? Of course I had heard of those. potentially evil.In those days, back in the early 60's, no one at our economic level thought about flying or taking a train. The terror of yesterday's storm had receded a bit, and I began to appreciate the intensely green scenery.Well, we got to the site, and looked around for a while. Well, no car sickness, I thought to myself - something I was very familiar with during my younger years living in Colorado. He was humming a different tune - something a little livelier than the previous version, but outside of that... Wait'll the real rain starts."So we barreled along at 78 miles an hour, literally boring a hole in the water. No one said a word as the storm faded away as quickly as it came. It was insane, and I, for one, was glad to get back to Arizona where the only thing I had to worry about were a few poisonous snakes, scorpions, an occasional flash flood, a few fires, mud slides, and a nice, comfortable dry heat..





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