Too Bright - the glare of the sun on Lucille, and on other things, too
Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 11:26AM 
Margie and I were motoring down Lucille Street yesterday, directly towards the high-noon sun. Due to the way it reflected off the ice and moisture on the street, it was kind of like driving toward two suns. It was too bright - altogether too bright - far crueler to the eye than even this picture implies.
I could hardly see anything. It hurt my eyes. All I could do was to drive very slowly and direct my vision back and forth to either side of the road. I could not look straight ahead, because when I did, I would see only painful glare - I would be blind to the traffic ahead.
It was too bright.
It reminded me of a story that I was fortunate enough not to witness first-hand, but to hear second-hand from one who was present to witness it. It happened in a small community somewhere in the American West. I will not identify the community, because it is small enough that every single person who lives there knows every other person and some of them just might get a little embarrassed to have their community caught in the glare of such a light.
Anyway, a number of the young men of the community had gathered to socialize at a place alongside a river which flowed nearby. They were drinking beer, shooting the bull, and just enjoying the sunny afternoon.
"Hey, take a look at what I got," one of them suddenly said. Then he unbuckled his pants, pulled down the zipper, yanked out his pride and joy and let the sun shine down upon it.
There was a moment of silence.
"Too bright!" One of his companions finally said. He turned his gaze away - the glare must have hurt his eyes.
Margie and I continued on to the Parks Highway, where we would be able to turn left, so that the sun would no longer be glaring in duplicate right into my eyes.
It's just pure coincidence that the next image that I would take after "too bright" would be this one.
I do not know such things happen, but they do. I didn't even realize it had happened, until I placed the image in this blog post.
Reader Comments (4)
sometimes when the conditions are right, it gets like this first thing in the morning on my road ...i actual find it kind of frightening when i can't see from the glare because the school children are also on the side of the road waiting for their bus. I don't know what to say about the other glare lol
Bill, your childhood friend doesn't sound 'too bright' to me. You alos live in a breathtakingly beautiful part of the world. Sometimes I forget for a minute and then catch a glimpse of it via one of your pictures, and I am once again amazed.
sometimes here in philly the glare of the low sun makes driving on the expressways nigh impossible. please find me on facebook as Ruth Greenwold Deming. too many bill hess's. when i was in fourth grade i had a wonderful teacher named mrs evelyn hess. we never forget our great teachers or great blogger friends!
Twain - here is my suggestion. When you have to face such a glare on the road, you can't look directly at it or you might crash, maybe go blind. Some with the other glare.
Debby - True, we do. And to be clear, this was not a childhood friend. Just a young man in a tiny community in the Western US whose antic happened to observed by a relative of mine.
Ok, Ruth. I looked for Ruth Z. I will go for Ruth G.