The Invisible Rain...

The weather has changed drastically over the last several weeks, I reckon that's what it's suppose to do this time of the year right-o! WELL! This spring was normal. The farmers managed to get their planting ahead of schedule, then... I really mean THEN... Mr. Rain went away and the crops shriveled up! Some of the corn did not form ears around my house. By the time Mr. Rain decided to come, too late! The temperature has plummeted from over 100 degrees in July with the summer well above the 90 degree mark! I wish to tell you about what I encountered a couple weeks ago, as in a beautiful fog. NO I did not say "I was in a fog," although you might believe me to be and am sometimes BUT not now, nor when this amazing fog hit. Your probably thinking , "poor old fool, a fog is a fog!" Normally, before this fog I would TOTALLY agree! I only hope I can do justice and should of wrote about this one particular fog earlier. This fog was different somehow... it left an everlasting impression on ol' Glen, so here goes!

September fogs are commonplace. This year has been so dry this fog, was different. Moisture and humidity here in the Midwest usually goes hand in hand. They old saying, "it's so hot and humid in July you can hear the corn a growing in the night time!" Yep, I agree with that and I have lived here all my life.

 Most of my life was spent working in an injection molding and finishing company, and... the factory was not air-conditioned. (Whow-za, where I work now has made me into a wuss! This old man could not do what I did many years ago!) Dang I'm starting to ramble, imagine that!

I spent a week of July in 1993 in Phoenix Arizona it was 110 to 112 degrees with 20% humidity. Yes, that's hot, and that's how it felt here in much of the Midwest, this summer. If you live where there is high humidity then you can identify with what I'm about to tell you. I have experienced HOT with low humidity and I have seen it 95 degrees with 90% humidity. The hot humid days and nights is what that corn needs, that be normal here. You can see the moisture dripping off the corn, I do reckon, you could hear the stalks popping and crackling under those conditions. I ride around at night on these hot July nights and the sweet smell of corn is magnificent! This year there was none of that aroma, no humidity in the air. The stalks simply dried up!

I've always hated fogs, there so eery and dangerous. They start in September, since I drive a truck late at night for a couple hours, I HATE 'EM!!!  I walk out the back door to make my delivery 30 miles north. Not a bit of fog. I get out of my truck and feel something ever so slightly, touching my face. Like the lightest, tiniest, raindrops, I've ever encountered. I look up into the lights of the building, unable to see anything. I go about my business, unloading a couple pallets, not thinking about it. On my return trip, where I had driven an hour before fog has developed, and getting thicker. Its not a blanketing fog, mind ya, you could see to drive okay. After backing in at work, I felt the soft caressing of the tiniest raindrops I've ever felt upon my face. I gaze up into the parking lot lights, imagining, droplets. Fifteen minutes later I walk out the front door and hold my head up into the night sky. The sensations of the droplets touching my face, was breathtaking, invisible, but I feel them! I mosey over to my van and sit for a long time. It was magical, the words I cannot do justice to! I could not make out individual droplets on my windshield. I linger for quite some time.

Have I overlooked a wonderful simple pleasure of life in the hundreds of fogs I have been in? Was it just me and the dry hot summer that I had just experienced? I do not know! I do however doubt, I'll ever experience a fog with the calming, caressing, beautiful thoughts I had that one night! I reckon, I understand the saying in a new light, "you have to stop and smell the roses".

Well all I know for awhile, I will not think of, the fog, as in the movie, "The Fog." For awhile, I'll think upon it with a completely different mindset! Until I'm in one of those fogs where you can't see ten feet in front of you. Then I'll slow way down and cuss, maybe not. I would like to hold on to the memories of The Invisible Rain, if only for AWHILE!!!     Glen