This is our last day in Oklahoma, which is of course in the process of burning down. They’re really stunning and terrifying, these fires, and every time the local news provides some sweeping helicopter shot of the devastation, I think about all these firefighters who have been out there for days now. My mother-in-law says it hasn’t rained here in a month, and the wind today was horrible.
It’s amazing to me how easy it has been to forget wind; a windy day almost anywhere else is a normal day in Oklahoma. We do miss the rain, though.
But not the tornadoes. No, Lord, not the tornadoes. Oklahoma can keep those. I used to love thunderstorms until I lived in Oklahoma, where a pleasant thunderstorm often turns into the sky trying to kill you.
Why do I mention all of this? Because I was reminded this evening of the dust-up at my alma mater’s English department, which is going through its own kind of burning. Like the wildfires, this one’s been a long time in the making. I can’t say I’ve been privy to all the ins and outs of it, or that I know precisely why this particular issue rose to the surface when it did, but from what I do know, it seems like some sort of Jungian (or maybe Sting-ian?) Loch Ness monster coming to the surface at long last.