Some of my old buddies at the cabin were already on their
second cup of coffee when I walked in.
“Mornin, Booger,” I said. I also nodded to Jerry, the
cabin’s owner. Shorty was studying a puzzle laid out on Jerry’s coffee-stained
oak table so I decided not to bother him. As I poured my coffee from Jerry’s
old pot, Stinky walked in the door, also ready for his free coffee.
“Did ya see the temperature this morning?” Stinky asked.
Jerry responded before any of the rest of us. Since it is
his cabin, we sort of give him the first chance at things. “I didn’t look at my
gage – how cold is it?” he said.
“I had + 40 on the gage outside my kitchen window.” Stinky
said.
“The radio said Grayling had 38.” Booger said. Booger always
tries to one up everyone. I had 36 on my thermometer but I kept quiet. The talk
about the weather seemed to interrupt Shorty. He looked up from his puzzle.
“Ya know, I think that just proves it,” he said. “All this talk about global warming ain’t
nothin’ but a hoax. We ain’t gonna have a summer this year. That little warmup
we had in the spring was just a short interruption from winter weather and now
it’s getting back to it. I reckon we’ve had all the warm weather were gonna
have for this year.” Shortly paused for a minute and then looked straight at
me. “That sort of blows your theory about global warming, don’t it?” he said as
his rheumy eyes challenged me for an answer answer.
I had just taken a sip of hot coffee and Shorty’s comment
caused a frothy black liquid to spew from my open mouth. “Wha …” Stinky stepped
to my rescue while I was wiping coffee from my chin and snot from my nose.
“Actually,” Stinky began, “the disruption of our normal
weather cycle, either too hot or too cold, is one of the symptoms of excess
carbon compounds in the atmosphere that people are calling global warming.
Carbon, mostly carbon dioxide, has been building up in our atmosphere since
people began driving cars, but the biggest polluter by far is the burning
of coal to generate electricity. That’s why the EPA wants to ban the use of coal
in some old power plants that don’t control carbon emisions.” (Stinky
likes giving us lectures and he was about to continue but Shorty interrupted.)
“Here it is almost the 4th of July and my furnace
comes on to warm up the house. Ya mean to say this whole thing about global
warming is a cruel hoax …it should be called global cooling?” I saw my chance
and jumped in.
“The problem is that air pollution acts as kind of a blanket
over the globe and it mostly keeps the heat in so that’s why it’s called global
warming. But, it isn’t the same everywhere. It’s like bein’ in your bed at
night – even with a blanket, some spots are too warm and some spots are cold. Here
in Roscommon we’re in a cold spot right now, but in a little bit we’ll be back
in a warm spot and you all will be complainin’ about being too hot.” I sat back
convinced that I had won my point about global warming until I heard something
that sounded like a growl. “What’s that?” I asked. It was Booger.
“Wool,” he repeated. Ya need a wool blanket. That’s what I
use on my bed and there ain’t no cold spots even when the temperature is 38
degrees in Grayling.”
No one had an answer. It seemed hopeless to me so I stood up
and went to the coffee pot to replace that which had come streaming out my nose.
‘Maybe tomorrow we should take on world hunger,’ I said to myself.
