Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

—-Robert Frost

It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice – there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.

—-Frank Zappa

Warm Weather Icebergs

There was a big ice storm last week which brought the city to a halt. But this is the South and it immediately turned hot. Once the temperature rose above freezing and the sun poked its way out, the ice melted with incredible rapidity. In a couple of days it was warm and dry.

Today, though, Craig was driving down Town East Boulevard wearing shorts, sandals, and a T-shirt and noticed as he went by a big parking lot near the mall that boasted giant still unmelted mounds of ice, pushed into the corners by plows after the ice storm. No streets and few parking lots had been graded (the roads all have these reflective bumps that snowplows will shear off) but this lot contained a big commercial hardware-lumberyard thing, and maybe they intended to be sure and sell a lot of sand and materials to repair the many carports that tumbled under the weight of the ice.

It was odd on a warm, sunny, Texas day to see the huge, angular, filthy icebergs moored along the periphery of the tarmac. They were melting fast – a torrent of water coursed across the lot. Like a glacier leaving a terminal moraine as it retreats, clumps of flotsam and jetsam remained after the ice melted – gravel and trash embedded in the deep layers of sleet and scooped up from the lot.