Foggy Memories

A foggy dawn has given way to a partly cloudy — wait a minute, make that sunny — morning.  But my head is still in the clouds as I remember great fogs I have known.

There was a stretch of misty weather in Chicago long ago, unseasonable November warmth that steamed up the city's windows for days. I walked from my house to the corner where I met my ride as if in a dream, passing stately homes and the distinctive domed church on Deming, pretending I was in Europe instead of the Midwest.

And then there were the pea soup fogs in Arkansas, so thick they made it impossible to drive the 25 minutes from Petit Jean Mountain to Morrilton. Since there were very few services on the mountain, a few days of fog created a desert-island feeling.

Finally, there were the fogs of my youth, which swirled around the big oaks in the Ware Farm behind our house, making those open fields look haunted and lonesome. The farm is filled with houses now, of course. But through the miracle of memory, the fogs and the fields are there for me whenever I want to see them.