NEVER BEFORE

Have I felt so warm. Well, I know that's a hyperbole, but before our storm two nights ago, it was close to being the hottest. The hottest, a Cardinal game in about 1981 in St. Louis, at the old Busch Stadium sitting about eight rows from the field at night.

Our humidity was 50%, which is extremely high for AZ. The temperature hovering at 106 or so. Sticky, take your breath hot, at 6:30.

Two hours later, the storm hit. A monsoon. Wind, lightning, thunder, and valuable, much, much needed rain. About an inch in our town, as much as two in other parts of the valley.

At Sky Harbor the rain dampened planes on the runways and parked at the gates. Some even had damaged computers caused by the storm. The AZ Republic reported no measurable precip.--go figure. They never get it right anymore than their political cartoons or letters to the editor.

But it stormed, taking away the desert heat for a respite. And providing valuable moisture. Valuable wetness. Even if the paper didn't recognize it.

"NOW, WAIT A MINUTE"

"You have never been to Niagara Falls, but you've seen Victoria Falls in Africa?"

"That's right, baby tiger. But there are no tigers in Africa, so we didn't see you."

At church Sunday, we heard a missionary from Mexico say that one thing about being a missionary was that once in awhile you'd see people you knew in National Geographic. I thought that funny and it reminded me of the time we found Michael in Zimbabwe.

Some friends of ours had been to Zimbabwe about one and a half years before we went. One of them came by our house just before we were to leave. All she had was a picture and first name of a guide they had had. He had taken them to his home on Easter Sunday. They had pictures and a CD they wanted us to give him. The only other information was that they had stayed at the Ilala Hotel where they had met up with Michael.

Our plan was ask at the hotel and perhaps leave them the pictures in hope that they might find him. But when Micato Safari guide Clive and Michael picked us up at the Victoria Falls Airport, sure enough it was the same Michael.

He was so pleased to have been remembered and rewarded with the pictures. Needless to say, we became fast friends. The rest of our tour group was astonished that the first person we met in Zimbabwe was the one we went looking for.

THE KAPOK TREE

This photo from West Australia shows the flower of the Kapok tree. It's the first I've seen.

One of our favorite restaurants near Orlando, Florida, was the Kapok Tree. Although I haven't been there in years, it holds fond memories. Like one Sunday brunch when our son was about one and a half. He loved their muffins.

Sitting straight in a high chair, he reached for them on his tray, while we ate fried chicken, roast beef, potatoes, and a huge salad. Scott kept shoving the muffins in his mouth. Within reach was his tippy cup which he washed them down with.

I remember putting other food on his tray, but he would have nothing to do with any of it. Except the muffins.

We must have been in deep conversation or viewing the elegant looking restaurant, complete with huge Florida green gardens and lush flora, but when it was time to leave, full bellied as we were, we went to remove our son from his high chair, and that's when we noticed the floor.

He might have eaten a lot of muffins that day, but he squeezed, mutilated, and destroyed in crumbles an equal number that had found their way to the floor. I'm sure the restaurant had never seen such a carnage of spills. Probably intentional. Oh, we made an effort to pick up, but they were so shredded that we would have been there sans vacuum for the rest of the afternoon.

I never remember returning to The Kapok Tree. Maybe we decided there might just be a cleaning bill there for us on our return.

I HEARD THERE WAS AN OLYMPICS

This Friday marks the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. I wish I could get some excitement about the games.

There are Olympics I've boycotted. Not as the Jimmy Carter boycott; I've just refused to watch them. It was more apathy than rejection.

I don't think I'll watch much this year. For a few reasons.

Number One, what do they prove? In the old Cold War days, it seemed to prove superiority. I loved to beat the USSR and East Germany in those days. The 1980 Miracle on Ice was fantastic. The Jesse Owens Olympics in 1936 in Berlin, shot a huge hole in the Hitler superiority of the races, and I loved reading about that. But now, our enemies are cave hiding suicide bomb attack terrorists. I don't think they'll be entering any events, so whom do I love to beat?

Number two. I loved The Jim Thorpe Story. It was a travesty to take away his Gold Medals because of a few weeks of playing professional baseball. Today, Kobe, LeBron and the NBA stars are hooping it up. I never did like it when Russia cheated with their paid athletes, but that's what made the ice hockey USA Gold Medal of 1980 so special. They did it fairly and with amateurs. But now pros can earn Gold Medals. No basketball viewing for me.

I still hope the US wins every event. I'm still a home country nationalist. But they've changed it too much for me. Purist? Traditionalist? Realist? Put a tag on me. But as for Beijing this year, I'll pass.

SO WHAT MAKES YOU WANT TO SCREAM BLOODY MURDER?

There are things that irritate us. Being unable to find a score on any of the sports channels. Just when they're getting to your favorite team, they break for commercial and when the return, three minutes later, they have skipped your score. That happens. All too many times.

There are things that anger us. News stories about abuse, neglect, outright evil. There are wrongs that just can't be righted.

There are things that annoy us. The glare of the sun this time of year when it is right in our face when we're driving. A fly who keeps bugging us. A bee that won't, as Dickinsn says, "state his sting". Far too many celebs and their personal out- of -control lives. The Cardinals' bullpen and lack of trading at the July 31 deadline.

Then there are things that bring out the primordal scream as in Munch's poster. To me, one is the driver who changes lanes and dares others to hit him/her, after he/she has tailgated so bad that you can read their lips in your rearview mirror. And this one, you've heard before. Stores that have 15 or more check out registers with no one manning/womanning them. I've shopped and I'm definitely ready to leave, but there are no checkers.

Just one more. The revisionists of history and the ones who don't have, but expect others to have 20/20 hindsight. The ones who blame the US for 9/11 or the ones who deny the Holocaust took place. The ones who yell about Tibet and Darfur but ignore Hussein's genocide in Iraq.

I haven't had a good scream in a long time. But I feel one building. I'm not even going to spell check because I'll have to read the entry agan, and I'm afraid after one more reading, I just might let one out.

DOES ANYBODY PLAY SNOOKER?

I was never very good at pool. I played quite a bit when I was in my late teens, early twenties. But I shot too hard. And too crooked. I tensed up. I choked. I just wasn't too good.

When we bought a house one time, there was a slate pool table in the basement which the owner had no interest in trying to move. I thought it would be great to have my own Brunswick table.

Mostly we put a table tennis top over the felt and played ping pong more than pool. I wasn't very good at ping pong either. I could never put the juice on the ball that made it hard to return and my returns were always too high resulting in a slam by my opponents. Well, not always, but I was probably better at pool.

The game I liked was snooker with the red balls, unnumbered, and the score that was recorded on a wire from the ceiling. A slide of discs indicated how many points one accumulated. But it was hard and had to be played on a snooker table with even smaller pockets.

Pool helped pass my college free time. It was good that I didn't have to try to make a living at it, or help pay my way through school. Had that been the case, I'd have lasted no longer than a semester. Maybe just a Mid-term. But it could have been worse. I could have had to wager on ping pong.