FROM MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL JULY 16, 1999

Yesterday turned into a scorcher -

nearly as hot and humid as the fourth of July weekend by late afternoon, not much for a breeze in the presence of a commanding sun. The night cooled off, a licking breeze entered the house. Which part shall we complain about - the hot sun, or how good it felt once the sun went down and the night cooled off? Can you really know pleasure if you don't know pain? Can you know joy if you don't know sorrow? If you hide in the protected hothouse environment, you shall blister and died under a real sun, in a real storm. Bring it on, I guess we have to say. Bring it on.

Now, Tom, it's just such claptrap as that which is a middlewestern fault. Yah, sure, some good German pain. What don't kill you makes you stronger, don't you know.

The sky is a blue sponge. It is full of humidity. The dome of earth, of sky and earth, is a steam cooker. The burner has been lit. It is still a beautiful morning all the way into the gauzy distance.

Crow is in hawk's tree this morning. What are you doing, Crow? Is this some code I'm meant to understand, but don't?

Oh, I imagine there are plains in Africa which look this beautiful, a confusion of haze and trees and light and an observer moving through it like a bullet.

The corn has been clapping its hands and stamping its feet and wiggling its dream of ears and growing and growing in this heat and humidity. Corn could not be happier.

Me? I go to work as I must.