Fog Machine

When I was a child we called it the fog machine. The City of Greenwood periodically sent a truck down our street that spewed huge clouds of insecticide into the air that was so thick you could not see through it. Really. I'm not sure what they were spraying, but I have been told it was DDT. One advantage of living in the deep South is that we get to fight mosquitoes communally and individually eight months of every year. Or more.

I exaggerate not when I tell you that all the neighborhood kids came out to greet the fog machine and we all ran like roosters in the street behind the truck. I wonder where our parents were and why we were not spanked and locking into and interior room for such life-threatening behavior. We got the biggest thrill out of that adventure, but I'm sure our lungs did too. And if a car had come along and driven through the fog, we might have been squished like a toad frog. 

I suppose that one anecdote illustrates as well as anything how times have changed, how we really did live in a simpler more laid-back time. We stayed in the street. We roamed the town, we swam in the river and threw rocks at cars. We had dirt clod wars and shot each other with slingshots and BB guns. Fun times.

I bring all this up because I ran into the fog machine last night on my evening run. Three times. First, I was shuffling along Medallion Street and wondering what that smell was. I didn't notice the drone-like hum of the mosquito truck a couple of streets over until it made its way back to Medallion and turned right for me. I took a side street and picked up the pace in a desperate attempt to get away, but the driver, whomever he was, followed me, caught me, and covered me up with the latest mosquito dope.

My assumption is that the latest chemical the city uses to combat our bloodsuckers now is a bit less toxic to humans than the old stuff was. But still, it can't be good to breathe that stuff deeply into ones lungs. Once the city worker caught me, I slowed to a walk and then made the next turn to once more escape the machine and find fresh air.

I did it. I got away and began once more to shuffle along not afraid to breathe deeply. I made my way to Riverside Drive and then like a bad dream he came once more and likewise I walked to minimize the destruction of my health. I made it across Grand Blvd and started another shuffle and got a few streets into the eastern part of North Greenwood when he got me again. Was he trying to kill me?

Finally I found myself free and clean from him for the last time. But my run was done by then. I suppose if there is a lesson here it is that I should listen for the machine when I step out the front door and get as far away from it as possible.