We sat under two massive oaks, dropping acorns as large as a human thumb on our heads and backs, as the cool late summer breeze brushed through the leaves, the air current pushing up the rocky bank off the cool waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The man speaking is a former tri-athlete, orthopedic surgeon and exercise physiologist.
Fall comes early again.
Picks up a mature acorn on a stem and turns it between his hands.
I attended a few global warming conferences because I was trying to factor in how a rise in temperatures would affect orthopedic medicine. Some of the people there were legitimate scientists looking for the truth. But as I attended each conference I noticed that more and more of the participants were just power players, government-type people looking to wrangle a bigger cut of the tax pie from the hysteria.
This piece of land has been in my family for fifty-one years. I have been swimming these waters for fifty years. I can’t run any more. All I can do to achieve that level of activity is swim.
From fifteen to thirty years ago the water was like bath water, warm all summer, tolerable for longer. I do swim in the winter and do most of my swimming before dawn, under the moon. You have to respect the water temperature.
For the past five years the water has only been comfortably warm from July through the last week of August. It’s September the third and it’s cold now. Everything is shutting down—the acorns are falling for God’s sake.
Isn’t Global Warming great!
As if to punctuate his statement a flock of 19 Canada Geese flew in, in an elongated V formation and set down in the inlet behind us.
The Lies That Bind Us
The Foundational Falsehoods of the American Dream
Of Lions and Men
