There's something wrong with me. For I love the fog.
I mean, I really love it.
Most people I know, they find fog a nuisance, and just plain creepy. Something mildly pretty at its best moments, but something they hope goes away as quickly as possible.
But me? I love it. I wish I could wake up every day with a thick, impenetrable fog surrounding my home. I wish I could walk through it every morning, barefoot if possible, feeling the slick wet grass against my feet, with a lantern to guide me through it. I love the feel, the smell, the mystery of it.
One of the most vivid memories of my life is the night, a few years ago, that I was driving from my then-home in Indianapolis to my late father-in-law's house in rural Hillsdale, Michigan. I started out in the late twilight. By the time I hit Michigan, around 12:30 am, a fog had fallen. It was so thick that I could barely see a hundred feet ahead of me on the road.
Now an odd thing about me is that, even though I'm nearsighted, I have unusually good nighttime vision. I see well in the dark. Unusually well. Even when it's so dark I can barely see, I have an acute sense of what's around me, and an acute sense of touch. I can maneuver around comfortably in circumstances where others feel utterly lost and afraid.
This particular night, the fog was so thick, driving was very dangerous. Yet, I had to get to my wife's father's farm, for I had nowhere else to go. Driving along the back roads of rural Michigan, I realized first that if I kept my car's highbeams on, I couldn't see a damned thing. So I turned off the highbeams and drove with the lowbeams.
After a few miles of this, it became obvious that, even driving fairly slowly, I still couldn't see well enough to be sure I wouldn't run off the road. So I slowed down a little more, and turned off the headlights completely. I drove slowly--perhaps 20mph--with nothing but the amber running-lights. Headlights OFF, just those little orange-yellow lights on the sides to guide me. But I kept going.
Still on the back roads, pretty much aware of where I was, I hissed on, listening to the gravel crunch under my tires. I watched the tree limbs rise up like the shadows of monsters ahead of me. I slowed down a little more, maybe to 15mph.
Then I decided to try a little experiment.
I turned off the running lights. Driving in a car, at maybe 1:30 am, on a dirt road in rural Michigan. With no lights--no lights whatsoever--on a very dark road. Trying to find my way to Rosemary's father's house.
Astonishingly, I found that I could see better, see the road more clearly, and drive with the most confidence, in the middle of the night in a pea-soup fog, with no lights at all. Except to flicker them on to read the occasional road sign.
Otherwise, no lights. No lights at all.
About 20 minutes later I arrived at my father-in-law's home. Exhilirated.
I love the fog.
(First draft posted in Andrea's comments.)
I recommend anywhere in California's Central Valley as a place to live if you like the fog...it's foggy every morning for several months straight in the winter.
There's enough traffic that I'd never try driving without lowbeams, though, less some brilliant individual run you down...
Every winter they run PSAs on the radio reminding you *not* to try the highbeams, since you'll make it harder to see, though.
Thanks for the reminder that it can be beautiful. Commuting in makes me forget that. :)
I remember one time in Iowa on my way to work at 6am during the winter, it was so foggy I had to drive with my car door open looking at the yellow center line.
I found out a few hours after I finally made it to work, that a woman within a quarter of a mile behind me where it was so thick had been killed when a semi hit her head on at the same time.
I won't even go into the trip to Pike's Peak, that one still scares me.
I'm totally with you, Dean. Growing up in Rhode Island, we had foggy weather a lot. My favorite is to take a long walk on the beach on a chilly foggy day. The combination almost pulls my heart up out of my body! (In a good way ... if that's possible)
I just want you to know that I used to love Howard Dean. This is my website. But I just found out that Howard Dean fantasizes about being a 13 year old girl in bondage and wishes he could be Ronald Reagan's sex toy. He hates the Jews and the darkies, but especially the jews because he thinks they have all the money and won't give him any.
I really hate him now. If you hate him too, please come to the website and tell me just how much!!
He is a real rat bastard.
Email me your thoughts on this stinkin' racist anti-semite. I'd love to hear from you !
democrattotheend@yahoo.com
Sees well in the dark, loves the fog... dude, does Stephen King know you exist?
I was a commercial diver in college. One of the things I enjoyed most was foggy mornings, driving the boat out into the bay, just as the sun was coming up.
Dean, looks like Laura from DC is shilling for Howard Dean's campaign. Looks like you now h ave Spam via comments on your blog!!!!
Well, Dean, you are one cool dude. I love this site. I just discovered the blogosphere and so far you are by far my favorite. First thing I want to do after a long hard day and dinner, is come over to your house to see what's cooking today.
I lived in England for 3 years in the 60s and have fond memories of "fog". Fog is cozy when you are safe and warm cuddled up with a blanket and a warm drink. Fog, however, is totally scary moving through it in a car. I love fog in a movie...Humphrey Bogart in a trench coat and fedora, Sam Spade, my hero risking his neck in the murky, soupy night fog...ooh too sexy.
Fog has its uses. A Soviet general, reviewing events in the great battle of Stalingrad in late 1942, related the attack of one of the attacking Soviet army groups on November 19, 1942 that led to the encirclement of the German 6th army and other large Nazi formations.
The attack, near the Don river where it approaches the Volga, was carried out in blinding fog. The Russians, attacking, were on the move, under cover of one of the most intense artillery bombardments of the war. The Germans and Romanians, defending, were stuck in their positions. "If we could not see the enemy, the enemy could not see us", the general related. "But we did not have to see them, because we knew exactly where they were and they couldn't easily move from their prepared positions, while we were on the move continuously." Many of the attacking Russians swept right through the enemy positions, which were mopped up later.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Sid: Fear not. We noticed some errors in Laura in DC's original comment, so we corrected it for her.
All in a day's work.
Oh my goodness Dean, you wonder if your love of the fog could mean something is wrong with you? Well then, I guess you need to get in line with a few people I think you may have heard of. They find fog to be beautiful, wonderful, inspiring, eerie....
Claude Monet while doing several pieces of his art of, Houses on the Parliament-especially beautiful, is the one showing the river all sort of foggy. It's wonderful.
Charles Dickens could use more descriptives in a single paragraph than any author I have ever read. In his classic, " The Twin Cities", I'll never forget how many ways he used the word, fog and of course it read beautifully.
A poet I like, you may not know of but, he has won numerous awards and lived through the great depression. He is in the Academy of American Poets, founded in 1934. Four lines that captures my heart by, Mr. Donald Justice is
PANTOUM OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION
We gathered on porches, the moon rose, we were poor.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world
THE GREAT DEPRESSION HAD ENTERED OUR SOULS LIKE FOG.
In the great classic movie, " GONE WITH THE WIND " In the background of Clark Gable's great line in the end, just behind himis fog as he stand in the dooway to tell scarlett-" Frankly My Dear, I don't give a Damn!"
Eerie-I am sure you can name some classic movies yourself.
Poets, Authors, Artists, Producers then of couse Steven King and the eerie.
And then there is me. Just me. I loved making out my flight plans with a dim light inside the cabin of the Cessna 172. It would be about 5:30 am or so and my instructor would be by my side. I loved the fog on those fall mornings before take-off. I'd look across the runway patterns and you couldn't see anything but the deep fog.
I remember sitting there waiting with excitement to get to fly and because it was so very beautiful to look out the window of the cockpit and slowly watch the pretty blue lights of the runway patterns come into view. Then the red lights and there's the wind sock, and as the fog lifted higher on those crisp cool fall mornings, how I loved those Texas skies.
I love fog, always have, good at setting the right mood for my writing.
Hmmm.... Dean likes the fog, and he can see in the dark...
VAMPIRE!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!