Friday, August 29, 2008

When Hell Freezes Over


In 1974 my good friend Andy Kornfeld and I hitchhiked from LA to Boston. Getting rides was easy until we reached the black hole of Victorville. Scores of hippies lined the on-ramp. Some had been waiting a day. I suggested to Andy that we take a bus to Needles, a desert town to the east. We walked to the bus station and got on an air-conditioned bus. The trip lasted about an hour. We exited from the bus into what I thought was the exhaust of another vehicle. The bus station parking lot was empty. The blast of heat was from the sun-dazed air. Across the street a giant thermometer read 125F and that temperature was in the shade. We hurried to the nearest Dairy Queen and cooled down our bodies with frozen shakes, then walked to the highway under the savage sun. Luckily an elderly couple picked us up within minutes. They were heading for the Arizona stateline. That was the most intense heat that I have experienced on this earth.

I had feel like a snowfall in hell.

But not Hell is freezing over with the construction of an artificial ski slopes in the Arab Emirates.

140 outside and 28 inside.

And all paid for my crazy westerners driving SUVs.

A world turned upside down thanks to America's addiction to oil.

Drill now.

Drill always.

That is the message of the old GOP.

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