October 7, 2002
DOWN HOME:
Driving west can be quite dazzling
___Have you driven west late in the afternoon recently? It's a killer.
___A few Fridays ago, our high school football team played an "away" game in an unfamiliar stadium. I followed the directions the other team provided and wound up driving five miles on a torn-up road straight at the sun.
___When we stopped at traffic lights, drivers couldn't tell when the lights changed, because the sun was so much brighter they hardly could see the red, yellow and green lights. I couldn't see much of the road ahead, so I started focusing on the bumper in front of me, figuring that might at least forestall a rear-end collision.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___For awhile there, I thought maybe the other football team provided those sunward directions on purpose, just to blind us so we couldn't see the first quarter of the ballgame. But after the first quarter, I decided that would've been a blessing, not a curse. It was U-G-L-Y.
___A few days later, a scientist on the radio explained why the late-afternoon sun seemed to penetrate right through my car visor, bore through my sunglasses and burn my retinas.
___This time of year, the sun lines up with the equator. This apparently means the sun's rays pass through less of the atmosphere and are filtered less. So, they bear down on us more ferociously just after sunrise and just before sundown. And they burn our eyes.
___"If you can help it, don't drive east early in the morning and west late in the afternoon," he advised. Like we needed a Ph.D. to tell us that.
___Meanwhile, we had just the opposite problem at home.
___The fluorescent lights in our kitchen were just about to go out and began protesting by flashing and dimming--mostly dimming--intermittently. Our kitchen felt more like the twilight zone. And four rooms with ceiling fans weren't much better. Some months ago, I got tired of replacing bulbs in the ceiling fan light fixtures, oh, every 13 days (or so it seemed). So, I thought I got smart and bought long-life bulbs. They supposedly had the same wattage as the old bulbs, but I'm convinced they last longer because they don't burn very brightly.
___Although too much light annoyed me on an unfamiliar road late in the afternoon, too little light in my own home prompted me to action. One problem was aggravating, but the other demanded response.
___The Psalmist proclaims: "The Lord is my light and my salvation--whom shall I fear?"
___The Apostle John declares: "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all."
___Jesus commanded us: "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."
___Christians' light is a reflection of God's light in us. The world needs it like plants need sunshine.
___Shine on.
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