In which the Midwest is an elemental minefield

Fire, ice, water, electricity, the sun -- pretty much the only thing that is particularly safe and reliable out here is the earth itself, which fortunately lacks the restlessness found in the more coastal chunks of continent.

It's been hot lately, record-breaking sort of hot, which at least rules out ice and water as assailants for the time being. Since our seasons often progress along the lines of Ice, Flood, Drought, and Mixture, or get stuck on one or two of the four for a year or so, this isn't  wildly surprising, just inconvenient. Which is good, since we don't have anything to talk about with strangers if the weather isn't bad.

In general, Drought isn't as tricky a season as Flood, since it usually subsides soon enough with nothing more than the occasional advisory and burn ban to remind us that this a particularly summer-y summer. It doesn't generally go all-out like in the truly dry places where your lawns are rocks and cactus, because at heart the whole cycle is eventually gearing toward its preferred status, Flood. Businesses in low-lying areas build on hills, build walls, or don't build at all. This is particularly true of my previous residence, where we would watch water creep into the parking lot and hope it didn't make it in this year. In 1993, 1996, 2008 and 2010 anyone too close to the ground was mercilessly weeded out of the area by rising waters. Childhood favorites like the pizza place, golf course, movie theater and bowling alley, all just a short walk from my old building, gave up the ghost one by one as they were washed out or simply realized that the water would not stop coming, not for long.

So in short, I'm used to sad spring stories from the lowlands about this, that and the other place literally going under. But I was surprised to see a familiar address, an old neighboring building, in the news now, with no water in sight. The apartments I sloshed past through the rivers of mud and God-knows-what-else in '96 had gone up in flames, none injured but little time to save anything else, a fire at 6AM in a building likely made with water in mind but ill-equipped for fire. I felt a faint twinge of irony at reports that the fire started in a boat....

Anyway, I know it's not Colorado's blaze or Japan's deluge, but it's home. It's hard to get over the fact that I used to live near hear, used to sneak shortcuts between buildings and windbreaks.



Walking around the charred walls I can see what's around the corner in my mind, a parking lot and a hill in the corner, steep but climbable, even without the steps, a place I found a dead frog once. All the chipmunks, far more than I see up north where I live now ... they're still there, cautious but curious and hopeful as ever for handouts. Friends of mine have lived here, some in this very building.

The thoughts of those for whom the memories are not of last decade or last year but of last week, those who have without exaggeration just lost the roof over their heads, I cannot imagine ... but I hope all have at least found a place to stay in the heat.

On a more upbeat note, my people (known as the Geeks) have a song we play for moral support on such occasions; please excuse if it is not to your taste, but we offer it in earnest. The words (while somewhat appropriate upon reflection for one whose land has burned and who suddenly has an unobstructed, if unwelcome, view of the sky) are known, so the music alone will suffice: