I’ve read the news reports and they’re suspect. Did you notice that not one report pinpoints the location of North Carolina fires now smoking us out in Norfolk. Whole lotta possibilities, “Within fifty miles of the Outer Banks.”

That takes in a great deal of territory. Could be anywhere. How could it be so hard to detail the location of so much trouble?

Let me voice my suspicion…I think it’s outa control down-south barbecue going on. As the summer rolls out before us, there’s that awful temptation to cook hunks of pig, to slather meat with cherished family recipes, to fire up the back yard pit, cool a tub of beverages, get sociable.

This is the only way to tolerate summer heat…barbecue and beverages. Mostly, I’m sympathetic but this is too much. When all of North Carolina on the same day at the same time marinates and incinerates, it’s enough to qualify as life in Los Angeles. “Cough, cough, gag, hack, wheeze.”

I have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The last day has been torture. I coughed up most of my feebly-functional lungs.

The worst part is that there’s no place safe from smoke. I first noticed it as I sat in an upstairs back bedroom, watching TV. Sniff, sniff. I jumped up, scared. My house must be on fire. I rushed up and down stairs, sniffed like a Chihuahua trying to be first to a dropped piece of chicken.

Not able to identify a fire site, I went outside. Gosh. The street was so full of smoke that a block and a half away was indistinct.

Now I was really scared, Norfolk must be on fire. I called my son-in-law who always knows everything. “No,” he reassured me, “ The smoke’s blowing up from North Carolina. I attended a bike racing event in Chesapeake this evening and it was even worse there. Stung my eyes, burned my throat.”

Somewhere down farther south, somewhere within fifty miles of the Outer Banks, there’s a scene from the third volume of the ring trilogy, vast fires as far as the eye can see. An army of southern chefs, wield basting brushes, swab acres of pork with preparations containing molasses, tomato, and dried mustard.

I realize that we Americans are now officially poor, our economy’s in the tank, we can hardly afford anything that counts as fun. I ought to be glad that those poor souls down in North Carolina are having such a heck of a barbecue, but I can’t. Nuthin’ in it for me. Not even a plate of ribs. All I got was the smoke.

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