My columns

I usually send in my column on Friday, for publication on the following Tuesday morning. From the moment I hit “Send” on my computer, I’ve got one week to submit another column. That one week limit is usually not onerous, but it is a persistent responsibility that can become onerous, when, as with the coming column, I don’t have a full week.

I sent a column in on Friday, July 21, knowing that the following Tuesday (July 25) I would be starting a Wyoming Humanities tour to Lander, Centennial and Encampment, meaning that I only had three days to get the column out that week.

That’s not normally a problem, so long as I can think of an appropriate topic. Of course, I give a lot of thought to topics for my column, and discard most of them. I look for something that will be interesting to most of my readers, usually relating to our lives in the Big Horn Basin, but not always. At my peril, I look back at what I’ve written in the past. I say “at my peril,” because the big trap is that I’ll just rehash old columns.

Although I thought hard about an appropriate topic because of my short time span, no ideas came to mind. But then, as happens, I started thinking about some recent happenings. This summer has been unusual for its consistency, with one exception. It’s been repressively hot and dry, but we have fallen into an odd pattern. It seems that almost every day we have had an afternoon disturbance. A storm blows in about 4 p. m., disrupts things, and then the day seems to say, “Never mind,” and returns to dry heat.

Sometimes these mini-storms have been ferocious. On a couple of occasions, I remember the wind blowing in dust like a Saharan Sirocco (or what I imagine to be like a Saharan Sirocco), depositing a layer of fine dirt all over our front porch. These winds have been so ferocious that after each one we have had to conduct a tour of our yard picking up small branches broken from our trees. Seems like we’ve done that about 10 times.

Other people in town have had to address more than just small branches. On a couple of occasions the winds have been so strong that they’ve cracked off large branches, and, sometimes, whole trees. We love the stately 100-year-old ash tree in our front yard and fear for its safety, but it’s still there.

Those strong winds are usually followed by rains. I remember one in particular in which it poured for a half hour. I guessed that a half inch of moisture fell during that deluge. The next morning, however, the Billings Gazette accorded us 0.00 inches of precipitation. “How that can that possibly be”? I wondered. I guessed that the precipitation measurement was taken out at the airport, where it did not rain at all.

On two occasions the storms were just right. After an oppressively hot day, the wind blew in, but not too hard, and it was followed by a gentle rain of about a half hour. It was delicious, that awful heat replaced by cool and soothing rain. And with the rain came that wonderful smell of fresh rainwater mixing with our hot streets. At least I think that delightful odor is the admixture of hot streets and rain, but it is mightily appreciated, whatever it is. It’s a big reason why fresh rain will keep me running to my windows to watch it fall.

So, what do you know? Looks like I found a topic after all.

John Davis was raised in Worland, graduating from W. H. S. in 1961. John began practicing law here in 1973 and is retired. He is the author of several books. John and his wife, Celia, were married in 1967, have two adult sons, and several grandchildren.