When I moved to Bakersfield in 1986, I considered it a short term assignment until I found a better job. As it turned out, THAT was the job that was meant for me. So I remained a transient resident. I could not call the place home. It was a place where I worked and lived.
My home, to me, in my small pea brain, was still Lindsay. I hadn't spent a night there since I started law school, but it was still "home".
One of the things that I remembered most fondly from Lindsay (remember a child's magical thinking here) was the fog. I remember seeing Christmas lights shrouded in fog and warm fires in our fireplaces while the outside world surrounded itself in quiet mist.
All very romantic.
Then I grew up and moved 60 miles south to Bakersfield.
Fog is not, I repeat, NOT romantic.
Yesterday, The Kid and I went over to Bakersfield to see old friends and do some business.
And we had an encounter of the second kind. FOG.
Now I have seen it worse. Or should I say I have tried to see through worse. But it was slow going in any case.
Off the edge of Highway 58 you wouldn't know there was a 500 foot drop.
But once we got there we met with some of my old friends. The warmest, most wonderful people on the planet. We had a wonderful day sharing stories and food and more stories and more food.
It was food for the soul.
And I stopped to see the resting place of a very good friend and mentor.
I miss you, Your Honor.
Fog, past and present.
Nope, nope, nope...I would be cowering in a parking lot somewhere if my fog-shrouded route took me on a road I knew had a drop off. I are a weenie...
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