The editor of the Westside Eagle Observer should have known better but he apparently ignored all common sense and vacationed in Kansas instead of taking some days off right here in Arkansas.
His first mistake was attempting to escape the recent hot spell we've been having here in northwest Arkansas by going to Kansas. In an attempt to escape the heat here in Arkansas -- in the upper 80s and low 90s -- he drove more than 500 miles to the north and west thinking the weather would be more pleasant. In our call to him on the first day of his vacation, he reported temperatures of 106 degrees Fahrenheit. He hoped it would cool off, but the weather in northern Kansas and southern Nebraska remained at 100 degrees or more most of his vacation, forcing him to stay close to the air conditioner or under one of the few shade trees in the whole region.
"I knew it might be a little hot," the editor said by telephone as he reported in on day one, "but I didn't expect it to be this hot. When I saw the combines in the Kansas wheat fields, I began to think back and remember what Kansas is like at wheat harvest time. I remembered those days of wheat trucks lined up at the elevator with temperatures as high as 111. One year they were 116! What was I thinking to come back to Kansas during harvest season?"
The editor tried to cover his mistake with excuses about the dryness of the heat of western Kansas being more bearable than the heat and high humidity in Arkansas but, when he got out of his car, his excuses simply melted away like an ice cube on hot pavement.
"It feels like the Mojave Desert," the editor said on day two when the temperature was 104. It may be less humid here, but it's too hot to want to do anything outdoors."
The editor also reported problems with the roads in northwest Kansas. It seems they were too straight.
"It's hard to keep my wheel steady and straight enough to stay in my lane," the editor reported on day three. "We traveled to a neighboring town and, though there were some hills, the road didn't curve around them. It was straighter than an arrow. After driving in Arkansas, it was hard for me to not steer to the left and then to the right. I was worried I might get stopped for driving under the influence, or something," he added, explaining that his car tended to weave around in his lane and sometimes drive over the rumble bars, causing his wife to ask him if he was OK. "Out of habit, I just had to turn my steering wheel at least a little bit one way or the other every few seconds."
He was also concerned how he would do if he did get stopped and had to prove his sobriety to an officer of the law.
"And if I did get stopped, how would I ever be able to balance on one foot on level ground? I'm not used to standing on flat surfaces and leaning into the wind anymore," he said.
It did rain a bit on day three, the editor reported, giving a brief reprieve from the high temperatures, but adding humidity so that then both temperatures and humidity soared.
"It was a perfectly clear and hot, sunny day on Friday," the editor reported. "We stayed close to the air conditioner. But then, about the time we needed to drive a grandson back to his house in another little rural town, a cloud billowed up and threatened. It rained. The road was hard to see. It hailed. It blew. Lightning was striking the ground all around us. The thunder shook the car. We expected the roar of a Kansas tornado any minute, and the weather service warned that the usually dry and dusty roads could be flooded by raging rivers at any time. I hoped we'd make it OK, but I've seen this kind of weather in Kansas before and wondered."
On Sunday, the extreme temperatures finally broke and the highs in western Kansas were quite bearable -- only about 90, though it was more humid than usual because of that sudden downpour which had threatened to wash away the editor on Friday evening.
"It feels about like Arkansas," the editor reported on Sunday. "There was even a little fog here early in the morning," he said as he began his long drive home to northwest Arkansas.
And so, once again, the editor's hopes of a cool summer vacation in northwest Kansas were dashed. He returned to northwest Arkansas and was glad to be home.
But don't expect him to learn his lesson. Come wintertime, he is likely to try and escape the damp, cold weather in Arkansas by going to northwest Kansas where the cold is dryer and doesn't feel so bad -- at least not until he steps out of his car and remembers that sub-zero temperatures feel colder when the wind is blowing 40 to 50 miles per hour!
S.A. Tired covers fictitious news from an unrealistic perspective for the Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. News and views in Spinning the News are claimed by no one else but the author.
Editorial on 06/22/2016