09-01-2017, 05:37 AM
As I was stuck in traffic gridlock yesterday, thank God for small favors, All Things Considered aired on NPR. The flooding in Houston and southeast Texas from Hurricane Harvey continued, so many of the stories concerned the plight of the people living in that area of our country.
As I passed Milo Street, the first story described the extent of the flooding in Texas, and how it was difficult to determine how long it might continue. As I looked ahead of me at a stream of barely moving cars on Highway 130, I thought how much my predicament was like that of the people in Texas who now watched the agonizingly slow pace of flood waters as they drained and receded from their impassible streets and highways.
When I neared Keaau High School I heard another story about a chemical plant outside of Houston that ignited, then poured plumes of smoke into the air, necessitating the evacuation of a 1.5 mile area around the facility. I looked ahead of me and behind at the never ending line of cars, and made certain all of my windows were rolled up tight, with my air system controls set at "Interior Recirculate" to avoid drawing in any noxious exhaust fumes from the outside where thousands of vehicles sat idling.
Somewhere close to the Humane Society and Transfer Station an announcer interviewed one of the hundreds of thousands of people without electricity, especially oppressive in the summer heat and humidity during August in the Gulf Coast area. I felt so uncomfortable as I listened to what he endured, I turned my AC down a notch (maybe two) from 72 to 70 degrees.
With no end in sight to the suffering ahead until I finally reached Shower Drive, I thought of what Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina, well not exactly what he wrote, but to paraphrase:
Happy people are all alike; every unhappy person is unhappy in his own way.
I realized Tolstoy was old school. With the news, real or fake, at our fingertips we can easily imagine we're all alike in our unhappiness too.
When I finally returned home 25 or 30 minutes later than usual, I unpacked my groceries into the electrically functioning, not-submerged-in-flood-waters refrigerator. Something on the middle shelf caught my eye and I thought, yeah, after all I've been through, I better have a cold one.
As I passed Milo Street, the first story described the extent of the flooding in Texas, and how it was difficult to determine how long it might continue. As I looked ahead of me at a stream of barely moving cars on Highway 130, I thought how much my predicament was like that of the people in Texas who now watched the agonizingly slow pace of flood waters as they drained and receded from their impassible streets and highways.
When I neared Keaau High School I heard another story about a chemical plant outside of Houston that ignited, then poured plumes of smoke into the air, necessitating the evacuation of a 1.5 mile area around the facility. I looked ahead of me and behind at the never ending line of cars, and made certain all of my windows were rolled up tight, with my air system controls set at "Interior Recirculate" to avoid drawing in any noxious exhaust fumes from the outside where thousands of vehicles sat idling.
Somewhere close to the Humane Society and Transfer Station an announcer interviewed one of the hundreds of thousands of people without electricity, especially oppressive in the summer heat and humidity during August in the Gulf Coast area. I felt so uncomfortable as I listened to what he endured, I turned my AC down a notch (maybe two) from 72 to 70 degrees.
With no end in sight to the suffering ahead until I finally reached Shower Drive, I thought of what Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina, well not exactly what he wrote, but to paraphrase:
Happy people are all alike; every unhappy person is unhappy in his own way.
I realized Tolstoy was old school. With the news, real or fake, at our fingertips we can easily imagine we're all alike in our unhappiness too.
When I finally returned home 25 or 30 minutes later than usual, I unpacked my groceries into the electrically functioning, not-submerged-in-flood-waters refrigerator. Something on the middle shelf caught my eye and I thought, yeah, after all I've been through, I better have a cold one.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves