It’s funny how small things seem to stick in your mind. For example, when my wife and my daughter and I were traveling back from Korea to North Dakota, my wife and daughter were experiencing the United States for the very first time. But in a larger sense, it seemed like I was experiencing the United States all over again after having been gone for two years. When my wife and my daughter and I arrived in North Dakota and stepped off the airplane for the first time, we experienced the smell of fresh rural air and the smell of green grass. You cannot imagine how fresh that smell was if you had not experienced it. And you may be thinking what is the big deal? Well, the big deal is simply this. For my wife who had lived her entire life in a foreign country filled with rice patties and crowded city streets, with fish markets and smoggy air, there was no fresh smelling green grass. For me, having lived in that foreign country for two years and then being reintroduced to that fresh rural air, it caught me completely by surprise. It was a pleasant surprise to be sure. But a surprise, no less. I was amazed by something that I had taken for granted all my life while I was growing up. I could not understand how I had overlooked such subtle beauty in something so simple as the fresh green grass and the rural air that I had breathed all my life. My wife remarked immediately that the air was so fresh. It made a strong impression upon her as well. Another thing we noticed immediately was that when the sun went down, the temperature got just a tad bit chilly. My brother Jed had come to the airport to pick us up. We had to ask him to roll up the windows and turn on the heater in the car. We were a little chilly and we didn’t have jackets. We explained that we weren’t used to the cool temperatures. We had just left a climate where the average daily temperature was in the 80s with an average daily humidity of about 80 percent. That tended to make things just a little bit miserable for people moving around outside. Some days, it got even warmer than that. Then, we came back to North Dakota where the daily high temperature was in the 60s and the low could drop into the low 50s. To the people in North Dakota, that was a typical summer. Perhaps a little cool, but a summer, nevertheless. But for us, those temperatures were more typical of early spring or late fall. It’s all about what your body is used to. One of my other brothers, Craig, had come along to the airport with Jed. So of course, they had stopped to drink mass quantities of a liquid substance known as beer before picking us up. I figured they really only had maybe one or two before they came to get us. But it sounded more melodramatic when I said they drank mass quantities. I must still confess, however, that I would hate to get into a drinking contest with my brothers. Let me tell you something. Those boys could put away some beer. If I ever did get into a drinking contest with them, I would lose for sure. No doubt about it. I noticed that my brothers were taking the scenic route to get home from the airport. I mentioned that. They brought up the point that there were three highway patrolmen on duty that night. Their odds of running into one of those three highway patrolmen was dramatically reduced by taking the particular route that they had chosen. Another thing I noticed as we were driving along was that I could hear every sound of the night. And that really amazed me. I could hear every sound of every insect and every night animal. That didn’t happen very often. I mean, the sound of crickets I heard nonstop while we were driving. But occasionally, I could hear the hoot of an owl. I didn’t realize I could miss hearing the sound of an owl. But I guess I had. And the sound of crickets. Who in their right mind would miss the sound of crickets? But I had. That sounds crazy right? Those kinds of sounds just didn’t exist for the last two years. I guess I had been deprived. Give me about two or three weeks. Two or three weeks?!? What in the hell was I thinking? It was more likely two or three days, and I would be up to my ears with the sound of crickets in the night, if you know what I mean. There is only so much of that sort of thing that a guy can take. You get to a point where you have to say enough is enough. Crickets be damned. Owls? They’re a different story. You don’t hear owls all night every night. So, I guess owls are cool. The whole point I’m trying to impress upon you is that our first impressions upon returning to the United States, particularly upon returning to North Dakota, were all of fresh air, the smell of green grass, and the endless sound of crickets coupled with the occasional sound of an owl or two. The sounds were blended with the laughter, albeit somewhat hilarious laughter of brothers getting reacquainted. And I experienced all of these things, while I was on just another exercise in futility.
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