The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Saturday night at the End of the Road Tavern, Big Larry was pounding the weathered fir table he and Ed Grabowski, a newly unemployed log skidder, were sharing as they finished up a dinner of Donny’s Hot Wings and a plate of curly fries. Big L. was exercised over the Big City liberal weatherman calling the upcoming storm the result of Global Climate Change. “My global ass!” Larry roared. Ed seemed more inclined to drink away his recent lay-off than encourage environmental debate. As he got up for his 3rd or 5th or whatever bottle of Budweiser, he said to Larry, “Who the hell cares? The weather’s the damn weather. It changes. So what? Hit me again, Donny, willya?”

Donny slipped a hand into the cooler, corralled a Bud and knocked the cap off with a practiced expertise, then slid it two feet down the bar. “I dunno,” he ventured, “they might have a point. Heating up like a greenhouse, gotta change the winds, probably the ocean too.”

Larry wasn’t having any of it. “Aw, what next, Donny? We gonna quit cutting trees? Quit drivin our trucks? We gonna live like Afghans cause we’re afraid the weather’s too hot?”

Trapper Charlie suddenly came conscious at the end of the bar where he was watching college basketball between two teams he’d never heard of. “Ain’t like it’s gonna be all bad. We might become the new California.” Big Larry avowed how he’d rather get sent to Lake View Nursing Home down river than live in a new California with all those wine-sipping yuppie yahoos. Charlie said we’d still be the ones living here and Larry said he’d be damned if he’d live here then!

These are meteorologically interesting times, I guess, and we’ve debated this many a rainy night at the End of the Road. The scientists seem pretty much in agreement and the Hot Talk Radio folks are in total disagreement. I can tell you this — and I know it’s a small sampling poll — we aren’t going to do much else about it but argue, at least up here in UpCreek. It’ll be a cold day in hell before we change our minds or our habits. Donny says to no one in particular, “Maybe I should start stocking up on a higher class of wine. You know, just in case ….”

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I’m laying bets most of you were pretty weary of four long years of nearly incessant Trump Trump Trump. Maybe thought, oh boy, we get a little peace and quiet. After a year and a half of Covid Covid Covid, maybe not…. Now we got Kabul Kabul Kabul, another Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi. One thing about the internet, repetition is good, just hammer it and hammer it and yammer it some more until that migraine keeps any joy in life at arm’s reach.

Course, get ready for Climate Change. Every flood, every tropical storm, every heat wave, every drought, every wildfire, every sneeze, every everything, we will be inundated by a tsunami of apocalyptic warnings, ominous predictions, dystopian scenarios and future catastrophes.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree, this is the Existential Threat of our lifetime. Donald J. Trump, not so much. Covid, unless it morphs into a flesh-eating monster, not either. Afghanistan, c’mon, just another foreign policy misadventure we’ll forget as fast as Grenada. But the oceans acidifying, desertification spreading, coastal cities swamped, insects dying off, extinctions expanding, the tundra melting, pretty soon the drumbeat will look like the pathetic palliatives they are. You care what Kim Kardashian wore last week on the Riviera when millions of refugees are fleeing collapsed societies?

Okay, quite a few will care. Hell, quite a few would vote for Trump a second time, anything to keep from facing Hard Reality. Covid? Doesn’t really exist. Climate Change? Don’t make them laugh. But … a change, like Dylan said, it’s a’comin’. Probably a little late and a dollar short. Well, trillions of dollars short.

I wish I was more optimistic, I really do. Happy Trump’s gone, happy we left Afghanistan, happy I got a vaccination or two for Covid. But hard times are coming. And just between us girls, what Kim K is wearing, or not wearing, this season isn’t going to stop the glaciers from melting, but it does make my heart grow a few degrees colder.

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