Man versus Nature

It is with a sad and heavy heart that I have to finally deliver the news that I am at war. It is a war that I did not seek, but it is a war that must be fought. It is a war that was declared long ago by an enemy too numerous to be counted and too vast to be avoided. I speak, of course, of Mother Nature.

It was bad enough when I was a child. Back then all I had to contend with was a poison ivy allergy bad enough to send me to the emergency room on at least one occasion, that occasion resulting in the spread of a rash from a small patch no bigger than a nickel on my ankle to cover my entire body… in three days. I’m still that heavily allergic. But I was willing to give up the dubious “pleasure” of hikes in the woods if Nature would leave me alone in the sanctuary of the streets that I call home.

For a while it seemed we had a truce, particularly in the summers of my youth as my Not So Humble Sister would get swarmed by mosquitos and I would be ignored (which may or may not have had something to do with her propensity for sunbathing and sports and mine for video games), although there were intermittent lapses in our détente (particularly the Full Body Sunburn Incident of 1988), but there were mistakes on both sides and I was willing to forgive and forget. Lately, however, it seems that we have approached the point of no return.

It started out small. I noticed a bug bite here and there. Nothing much, but I had never really gotten them much before. Then last summer I became a major target for mosquitos. I also started noticing a sudden encroachment of ivy around my house. Maybe it’s the poisonous kind, maybe it’s not, but would you take the chance? The final insult came when I started to notice that my winter cold was hanging around longer, and would actually get worse as spring progressed. My Not So Humble Wife suggested I try taking some of her OTC medicine, and it worked. My god! Allergies! My oldest foe had finally resorted to biological weapons!

This, then, is the final straw. It’s clearly spelled out in every international agreement and treatise on war that there are some things that are simply beyond the bounds of acceptability. I’m tired of being on the defensive. I have no choice; I have to take the war back to Nature.

Even though large tracts of America and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of Mother Nature and all the odious apparatus of Her green rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in the yards, we shall fight on the sidewalks and the walking paths, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our health, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the school grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Thank you, God bless, and pass the Allegra.