Other memories...

Other memories, mostly confused: searching for motels and hotels that were "pet friendly" Oreo, our dog, you see), searching for restaurants with patios and al fresco dining (the dog under the table with a bowl of water and a snack, us up above wilting in the sun), generally not finding such restaurants and so picnicking along the way in the shade of a tree or a dumpster.

Meeting remarkable people: the farmer/used car dealer who let us eat lunch on his property, the enormous bearded biker in black leather who took a great liking to Oreo and told us how wonderful, kind and loyal is that marvelous beast the dog. Better than humans. Who will betray you to your enemies. Or the law.

Enormous storms: lightning blasts from the highest of the high right down to the ground at your feet, black rolling clouds which (at one point) turned into the dreaded funnel and did some real damage in the town we had just left.

And heat. Heat. The great shimmering terrible heat of the drought.

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Moving through Kansas was fascinating and terrible. The summer of 2012 was a summer of drought. You would drive through fields and fields of corn…blasted dead, withered, leaves brown and wrinkled as parchment. It was hard for the farmers. It will be hard for many others in terms of higher prices for food.

In one little town we stopped for lunch. Again, we couldn't find a place to eat where we could take the dog. But there was a little park, sort of in the very center of the community. We got sandwiches at a Subway, took out our folding chairs, and ate outdoors.

I say it was a "park," but envision nothing green. Nothing verdant or living. The grass was brown and dry. It was even brittle, for lack of a better word. You could touch it and it would not spring back.

Then, to add a touch of biblical plague to the scene, there were huge grasshoppers everywhere. Great horned locusts, like something out of Exodus. You would move or take a step and they would bound off in every direction, startling the dog who would try to pursue them, then fall back confused and maybe even a little afraid.

We ate our lunches and left.

I remember this incident clearly because shortly before it happened I'd heard on the radio that a certain and intelligent Right-Wing pundit had apparently said something along the lines of, "Global Warming is happening. Get used to it."

It was an interesting remark. It conceded that climate change is underway, yet did not extend the cause for that to human activities. Further, rather by implication, it suggested that even if climate change were due to the combustion of fossil fuels, well, that was the price for the modern world.

There may be something to the idea, I don't know.

And yet…

It did strike me as I looked out upon the brown waste that it is easy to say such things when you are sitting in an air-conditioned office, knowing that a chill drink is only a short walk to the fridge away, and knowing too that you are wealthy enough to afford significant increases in your food budget.

The rest of us… that's a different story.