Bourbonnais, IL

Neighborhood Streets

Run Time: 63:47 + 2-minute kick

Brutal heat, high humidity, no shade, no fun. No trail, no track. Just cement sidewalks. Even the five-minute walks between ten-minute runs provided little respite. If you run only when conditions are ideal, I suppose that makes you an idealist. Better to strive for anyism, when it comes to running, at least.

As I drove through one of the Central U.S. industrial centers this week, I passed a Fog Area sign. The smokestacks on either side of the railroad overpass, and the strange acrid smell made me wonder if this was standard H2O fog they were warning of. I can imagine some municipal decision-maker in 1973 making an executive determination that if it looks like fog, you can call it fog.

Even more concerning in this interior land of corn is the agri-smell you sometimes encounter, and the uncertainty when you don’t. I remember the odor of powdered Malathion when I worked at a granary at age 15. It’s that same chemical smell of fertilizer and weedkiller. Your brain knows it’s not right. Our bodies are still calibrated for hunting and gathering. They know.

I also encountered a helicopter spraying fields — first time I’ve seen that. I suppose we need to keep the chips and ethanol coming. The societal disruption if we ceased chemical activities might be immediately worse. The Earth, after all, will be fine. It does not care about the nature of life. Life, as Ian Malcolm reminds us, finds a way.

There is hypocrisy, however, in criticizing industry and agribusiness when you work in the fossil fuel industry, driving around in a non-hybrid, or worse, flying to a regional center for a week of travel. Not sure if I will ever escape that trap that I freely walked into.