The rain came down in sheets of silver, cascading down from the balconies of Big Pink and pooling in the low spots along the walkways. I had not seen rain this hard and this constant since the monsoon in Korea, the endless sheets of water that fell on the hooch on Yongsan Garrison and made the walk to the bunker in North Post a soggy adventure.

I would make sure to splash loudly on the walkway to ensure that the Ghurka guards knew that I was coming, and clumsy enough to be no threat.  You have to plan ahead. Like with the the monsoon came in late June every year. The heaviest rain came in July, and I ensured that my boots were well-oiled.  When the rains came, it would rain for weeks before the dry air came from the North.

The autumn leaves are beautiful in Korea when it dries, and the harvest moon of Chu-sak sails serene in the heavens. But with the full moon came the chilly winds, and the season of the on-dalh heat. Koreans burned charcoal in fireplaces outdoors that connected to passages under the floors.

Americans would shut up their houses tight again the winds, which the Koreans did not. They knew about the effects of the odorless carbon monoxide gas that builds up in a closed house. The Americans did not, and often died in their beds. The Eighth Army Headquarters was very concerned about it, and broadcast helpful public service messages about the danger on the Armed Forces Korea Network. But every year someone did not get the word and died in their beds. It is a matter of planning.

I don’t anticipate that happening here, though with the dramatic increase in the cost of heating oil and gas this winter there will be more that die. they will try to augment the heat by plugging in space-heaters and leaving the oven turned on with the door open.

The extension cords snaking across the floor will cause a child, or a drunken adult, to drag something down and start a fire. Or the pilot light will flicker out and the gas will fill up the sealed and sleeping house, just like oh-dahl. Only this will be an  explosive cloud that with a spark will blow out the back of the house.

It happens every year. But with the refineries and pipelines knocked out, heating will be expensive. And that means there will be more cutting of corners. More reductions in service.

I wasn’t following the weather that drenched us, not the way we hung on the track of the monster storms in the Gulf. This appeared to be just a mass of disorganized clouds that came in across the St. John’s River in Jacksonville and spewed its innards out across Georgia like a drunken Frat boy.

It had been very dry in Northern Virginia, and people were beginning to talk about the time of draught three years ago, when the water table dropped and the grass grew brown before its time.

It is hard to plan for the disaster de jour. With all the weather happening elsewhere, and the earthquakes and the tidal waves and the melting of the North Pole, there is a huge rush to exploit the oil and gas that were locked under the eternal ice. Except that it turns out it is not eternal ice, and the shipping giants are already planning new routes across the liquid Pole. Norway and Russia are poised to exploit what might be a quarter of the earth’s energy resources.

I don’t understand it. Isn’t New York supposed to go underwater when the ice goes away? Or is the world ocean just like my evening vodka and tonic: when the ice melts, the level of the drink stays the same?

The only thing that is certain is that if the loss of the Pole brings opportunity with catastrophe, nothing will change soon enough to prevent shortage this winter. Drowning the refineries of the Gulf will ensure that.

At Big Pink, management has posted little signs in all the trash rooms, saying that the gas bill between January and July was $207,227. They are encouraging the residents to conserve, and husband the scarce resources of the Condominium Association we all belong to. That caused me to blink. There  a lot of people on fixed incomes here, and it is pretty clear that the bills are only going to get higher. That is really going to put the squeeze on the finance committee.

Mrs. Hitler is the chair of that committee, and I imagine there is going to be a firestorm at the annual Association meeting at the Unitarian Church across the street next week whe she reports that the condo fees are going to have to be increased by hundreds of dollars.

The pensioners are opposed to anything that increases the condo costs. They just about went spastic when it was pointed out that the old single-pane windows were hemorrhaging energy in the winter. Replacing them would have cost a few thousand dollars per unit, but save millions  over the projected life of the sructure.

They went equally ballistic when management proposed replacing the hall lights, elegant old-fashioned things with multiple little incandescent bulbs, with new florescent technology. The old folks didn’t like the quality of the light.

And saving money didn’t matter, compared to the comfort of constancy. Besides, the old folks are tapped out, and saving a penny now is better for them than saving a nickel later. The apparently view the utility bill that is folded into the monthly condo fee as an immutable right. The power of self-delusion is an incredible thing. As if you could pretend that things are not happening, and there are not consequences for everything that you do or don’t do.

When the monsoon comes, it is a little late to be worrying about the roof. It is not like it isn’t an annual event.

As for me, I want energy efficient lights and new, double-paned windows. I’ll be happy to pay for them, too, unless I lose my job. If that happens, I suppose I will be willing to trade off the landscaping or the snow-shoveling for another few thousand BTUs worth of heat this winter.

But who knows. Maybe it will be warmer this winer.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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