The Ride Home

Today I drove home from Salem under Biblical-like skies that could easily be imagined in the background painting of the Sistine Chapel. The clouds were black bottomed and rimmed with gold edges around their neon pink tops. The sun was sending shafts of low light that highlighted a gigantic rainbow that followed the bucolic scenes of rustic barns and fields bursting with blooming nursery stock. I could almost imagine God's gigantic hand reaching out to Adam's in the foreground of my mind.
For some reason, this scene made me start thinking about things I wish I didn't know:

• Both Abraham Lincoln and his wife probably suffered from what we know as clinical depression.



• Fake snow is made out of soap flakes and not out of any watery material at all.



• Hamlet wasn't really as young as Shakespeare would have us believe.



• Anthony Geary had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor. (Wait! I think I like knowing this.)



• Tectonic plates and their random movement cause earthquakes. I'd rather that earthquakes were more cosmic in nature.



• "Great you pull pieces" is a phrase I am somewhat embarrassed to admit I understand.



• My 2005 RAV 4 doesn't really get good gas mileage.

And then the sun sank in a Maui-like blaze into the Willamette River as I headed the back way home off the old highway. I had no way of knowing what caused that awesome sight other than to turn a wholly natural and beautiful event into something atmospheric and scientific. I didn't want to know; I just wanted to get one last glimpse of its wonder.