Author: Steve

We day-tripped out and back to take care of some business in Laredo today.  When we got to that Border Patrol checkpoint fifty miles north of our house, the agent looked at us, looked inside the car, and said “Just the two of you?  No doggies today?” and waved us through.

We had never seen that particular agent before; she was not inquiring from familiarity.  We know the lady, Monica, working at the rest area a few miles away, and she recognizes us, because we often stop and chat with her while stretching our legs, our puppies’ legs, or just walking around looking at birds.  The Border Patrol agents at the checkpoint, not so much.  All business.

For years, Judy and I have speculated about how much we’re being profiled at the checkpoint and how much they might know about us before we even get there.  Each Border Patrol agent has a little shack to pop in and out of between cars.  Presumably there is a computer screen in there.  How many cameras and license plate readers and how much facial recognition have we unknowingly passed through before we even get to the point where they usually just wave us through?  When we switched from the minivan back to a Jeep, we joked about them saying to each other “Look.  Steve and Judy got a new car!”.  Coming back from a long trip in the bus, “Hey look.  Steve and Judy are back!”

How much of that is true?  How big a file do they have on us?  Are we of enough interest to have a file at all?  Did the agent today confirm that yes, they not only recognize us, but they have notes on us and what to expect?  Or was that just a random guess by the agent that two old Anglos in a car probably usually have two little white dogs with them as well?

Who knew there was such a thing as an atmospheric river?  We didn’t know about them when we were kids in Southern California.  Recognizing atmospheric rivers is a relatively new thing.  That term didn’t even come into existence until the 1990s.  I think the pattern didn’t get recognized until we started to get a more global view of weather using data provided by satellites.

When we were kids, some years we just got so much rain it was fun to play in.  The grassy park in front of our house would flood and the standing water would last for days.  We could run and slide and play tag while soaking wet.  Dad had some old track shoes with dangerously pointed spikes on the toes.  (Who knows why Dad had old track shoes.  Never heard of him ever running track.  With all the strange stuff that could be found lying around our house though, it would be fun to be able to ask him about all of it now.)  We took turns wearing the track shoes and outrunning everyone else.  Barefoot, we could get out the skim boards and go skimming without even walking to the beach.  We couldn’t count on flooding rains like that happening every year.  They only happened once in a while.  In fact, I only remember two of them during the ten years of my childhood there.  They were sure fun when they did happen though, and we looked forward to them.  I wasn’t aware of anyone being put out by them.  We lived on level ground that drained into the ocean (and was well above the height of the ocean so it only flowed one direction).  It would have been scarier if we lived on or below a hillside that was turning to mush and being pulled down by gravity.

The atmospheric river currently flowing into our old neighborhood in Southern California doesn’t sound like much fun for a lot of the people that are there now.  Probably the more the land is developed, and it has developed a lot since the 1950s, the less the water can dissipate naturally, and the consequences of heavy rain events are more severe.  Who knew back then we were wishing atmospheric rivers on ourselves?

Look.  A great blue heron with a fish!

Wait.  That’s not a fish.  It’s a giant tadpole.

A bullfrog tadpole I guess.

Whatever.

Gulp.