I read a report that sixty percent of the US is now in drought. Here around Kansas City, it's not so bad, though the grass is mostly brown, the river is down, and there is very little barge traffic. Upstream, north and west, where the water is coming from, or rather, less of it, it has been dry for, what is it, seven years now in the Dakotas. Seems it's the worst heat and drought since the dust bowl days of the 1930's. I remember my dad telling me about the summer of (I think it was) 1936, when he and his brothers were doing some fence work with a crow bar, and when they set it down they threw a gunny sack over it to keep the sun off, or there was just no picking it up again. How is it elsewhere?

This topic interests me, has for a long time. Years ago, I read Brad Steiger's book "A Roadmap of Time," based on the work of a professor at Kansas University at Lawrence, only some fifty miles from here. The name of the professor escapes me, but then it has been about twenty-five years since I read the book. However, he outlines history for centuries back in terms of 100, 500, and 1000 year climate cycles. According to the book, from about 1975 to about 2000 a cold/dry phase dominated. Now the hot/dry phase is here. The wet phase is a ways away... Fascinating stuff, the book even mentions how the cycles affect politics, art, architecture, just about everything.

Laz