IT'S A NICE DAY - 06.30.2021
June 30, 2021
When was the last time you could say, "It's a nice day?" I suspect the term is out of fashion these days between the heat dome, mass shootings, beating, buildings collapsing, and similar news stories.
It's also something I seldom heard when I was stationed at Fort Lewis, near Seattle. I was reminded of this from a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC article titled "Under The Heat Dome" by Craig Welch, the Environment writer. Here is how his article starts out – "When I moved to western Washington in the late 1990s, the weather was disorienting. It rarely snows here. My first winter, it rained 90 days out of 120. At the end of May, after a few glorious bluebird days, Seattle's slate skies usually return, and a thick cloud ceiling settles in for another month. We call it Juneuary.
We have our jokes—'What do you call two straight days of rain in Seattle? The weekend.' 'What's a week in Seattle without rain? Summer.' Over time, though, I've grown to love it. Sure, it can be gloomy at times, but it is almost never hot."
That's the Seattle, this California boy remembers. The good thing for me was that I worked in the Post Finance Office, paying the Army's bills, and only had to worry about the crazy weather walking back and forth from the office. I felt sorry for the troops out in the field. I lucked out as my Basic Training was at Fort Ord, near Monterey, California. The weather there was great.
For many, a nice day may be a thing of the past. At least that's what William Falk, Editor-in-chief, to THE WEEK implies. Here's part of his scary comments – "The term 'climate refugee' may summon images of Bangladesh, sub-Saharan Africa, or sinking islands in Micronesia. But in coming years, it could include Californians fleeing apocalyptic wildfires and choking air and Arizonans and Nevadans facing unbroken months of heat so intense it is dangerous to leave the house much of the day. In this arid region, battles over scarce water will intensify."
What's scary to me is that we use water to put out the wildfires here in California. And, we are out of water.
This morning, several news shows had climatologists who indicated that this week's sizzling temperatures may herald a climate reality that scientists thought was still decades in the future. So, for my Seattle friends, it's time to invest in air conditioning units for your homes. Who would have thought?
I'm continuing to work on my SKYWARD manuscript, which has turned into a learning process. Not just because of the research needed for the story but also because I was writing it as a continuous document, rather than dividing it into separate saved chapters. Apparently, Microsoft Word (in the cloud), when combined with Grammarly, rebels against long documents. So, I would be typing, and suddenly the document would freeze up. It would take several minutes for things to catch up. As a result, I have spent the last two days cutting and pasting the chapters out of the manuscript and making each a separate file. What a waste of time. But, I have learned my lesson. I'm not sure why I was writing this manuscript this way. Previously, I had divided things into individual chapters to be assembled later.
For SKYWARD, I'm caught up in a couple of things at the moment. How the wealthy in San Francisco reacted after the 1906 San Francisco fire and earthquake. There seems to be a hidden story there, which I have not figured out yet. It pops up in bits and pieces as I read the history of the time. Both the rich and poor were vying to replace lost housing at the same time. And, the rich were competing with each other.
My mind is also trying to figure out the impact of money on the human psyche. The thought fits into what is happening in society today. Do those brought up with wealth think differently than individuals who are not? I know, stupid question. But, how is that reflected in my character's behaviors? How do I describe it in actions and dialogue?
My story goes from building a mansion in San Francisco in 1916 to building a colony on the Earth's Moon in 2022. Untold wealth, conflicting ideas, and discrimination lead from one to the other.
On the crime beat - I just read that many police departments are putting up the equivalent of the old Post Office "Wanted Posters" on the Internet. Some departments are using them for even minor crimes. The problem is that once they are posted on the Internet, they are never taken down. Even after a person has been exonerated, paid their fine, or served their time. This places a stigma on the individual forever. More thinking needs to be done on this practice.
That's it for today.
Cheers,
Richard V. Rupp, Author
Website – www.richardvrupp.com
Email – rupprisk@gmail.com
Copyright©2021 by Richard V. Rupp