There is fog, there is a mist.
Laurel asked,"Did you hear that weather report?" as she was getting ready for work.
I said, " I do not listen to them anymore."
I thought to my self, I used to listen to the weather every day. I would listen just to find out what to wear to work. Since I had to walk 3/4 of a mile across that dam and up 80 or more steps up. Maybe seven stories tall, I am not sure? I would have to carry in a backpack just about all year a raincoat and a jacket, matches and a newspaper in the winter to unfreeze the locks. Ice cleats when the water froze on the dam. It would sometimes be about six inches thick.
I would walk across that dam when it was zero out and the wind blew out of the north.
It seems almost frightening now.
Every step a conscious step, I was well aware of my existence for each step could be my last.
If I fell off the dam on one side I would fall fifteen feet on to boulders maybe just cracking my skull open and
if I fell on the other side I would be churned to death by the volatile turbulence of the water
not to mentioned the cold in the winter.
I carried a backpack everyday. In the summer when the humidity was 80 and the temperature was about 95 I was like a pump. By the time I got to the top of the steps my heart would be pounding and the sweat would be flowing. Buy the time I reach the lock walls my shirt would be soaking wet. The other fellows in Illinois that just parked their cars and walked just 100' did not understand. It started out with four of us walking from Kentucky to Illinois in 1980. We are now all retired. I was the last to walk across that dam. I retired this last New Year.
But now I do not worry about the weather or carry a backpack. I just sit and relax, work out in the garden or in this home.
I live in peace.
There is news of the unrest in other parts of this vast planet. That is very depressing.
It chokes our pores with black and brown filth. We are glad when it rains.
There was no news at Tolstoy or Morningstar and that was nice. There are places on this planet where life is isolated.
Where you just worry about what is happening to just you.
A place where all the demons of city life are nonexistent, Kentucky is one such place.
When I grew up in the forties and fifties the world was so confusing. My life was mixed up with so much input and it seemed that I as a human being was at fault. Now I know that it is not the case but back then who was to tell me otherwise?
So should I cry foul when this nation goes to war or should I just live in peace here in Kentucky?
I now have a choice I can move my influence as I please. I had a choice back then but I knew nothing about it at that time.
I was just a young boy just whipping my back in penance.
I did pop on the Internet and got Laurel her weather report.
The weather, mist and fog this morning, high about 86 degrees today with a chance of rain tonight.
I think I'll plant some watermelon seeds.
There is fog, there is a mist.
 

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