chasing fog......

I used to chase fog as a kid. I also considered myself a "cloud expert", tornado drill sergeant, and general child weather prodigy. But the most fun I had was chasing fog.

There were a series of dense and foggy mornings in our neighborhood. It was the spring before we moved away to Kentucky, so probably 1975. I spent every day with my best friend sherry, usually outdoors (unless it was raining, and then we got to play inside and watch "Brady Bunch" repeats.)

Sherry and I lived across the street from each other, and every morning our mothers got us up, fed us breakfast, and sent us off to play. I think we even planned our outfits to match. My mom would call sherry's mom to find out if we were going to wear shorts or pants, if a coat was needed, etc...

The first morning we saw the fog, I remember being frightened. Where did the neighbor’s house go? Was something on fire? I knew what smoke looked like from the bonfires at night when we camped. This was different.  We asked Sherry's mom to explain. She told us it was just fog.

"What do you mean? What’s fog? Can we touch it?" we asked.

"Fog is just a cloud that lives on the ground. Now leave me alone!"

We walked towards the neighbor’s house. We could hear the dog barking. As we got closer, we saw the house. Sherry walked a few steps ahead of me. I told her to keep walking; she was close to touching that fog!

She said, “No, it’s still up ahead, I can’t touch it yet.” I told her to step aside. I’d walk up ahead and touch the cloud on the ground.

By that time we’d discussed the fog in great detail. We each took turns walking ahead, yelling at each other to “touch it already!” We spent the morning doing this, and ended up all the way down the block, completely exhausted and confused.

The sun eventually came out, and a huge rainbow appeared in the sky. We then began our search to find the end of the rainbow and the pot of gold we’d heard about…