This story is inspired by an old joke that exists in many forms. If I did my job right, you will recognize the joke. If not, well, I'm sorry.
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I know what you're thinking. It isn't that hell. I live in Hell, Michigan, a small town Northwest of Ann Arbor. Look it up. I'm an electrical engineer and I work at the university. The physics faculty dream up pie-in-the-sky ideas and I make them reality. This particular reality was a tall order, but I'll get to that.
Oh, yeah, my name is Richard and my wife is Karen. Well, she was my wife. Actually, she just was and now she isn't anymore. Let's just leave it at that for now.
This particular project that I just finished was as much an adventure as it was a job. One of the big geeks in the Physics Department (yeah, they know I call them that) came up with this cockamamie idea. He wanted to measure very-low-frequency oscillations of the Sun. Why? I don't know. He wants it. I build it. I go home at night, work in my garden, and play with my wife. That's the deal. These oscillations are so low in frequency that you need weeks of uninterrupted measurements. Well, you can get twelve hours on a good day, but you can't watch the Sun steadily and without interruption for weeks, right? Wrong. You go to the South Pole in summer when the Sun never sets. That was the adventure.
You know the expression, "...when hell freezes over!"? Yeah. I've heard it a thousand times. I live in Hell, remember? Well, Hell Michigan is damn cold in the winter and Hell freezes over for months. If I have to go to the South Pole in summer, it's their summer and not mine. So I have to go when it is winter in Hell, then it's summer at the South Pole which is even colder than winter in Hell, and then I go back to winter in Hell!
When the time came I left my warm bed and my warm wife, and I started the journey to the South Pole. First, you fly to Hawaii and spend a day in the tropical sun. Then you fly to New Zealand where the National Science Foundation stages their flights to Antarctica. I spent a week getting trained in how not to die at the South Pole. The place sounds more inviting with ever lecture (not). Eventually, when the weather was good, I boarded a transport for McMurdo and from there we flew to the pole.
I'm at the pole for three weeks and it's a miniature city down there! Half of all of us at the pole, and that includes me, are sleeping in walled tents. I'm camping out at the freakin' South Pole! I take advantage of the long days to get the telescope assembled and work as fast as I can. The drive mechanism requires precise calibration to track the Sun from that latitude and the data downlink has to be established. It would not be overly difficult in a temperate climate, but everything at the pole takes three times as long. Don't get me wrong; it's a story I figure I can tell for the rest of my life. Still, I have a warm wife back home and I've got some catching up to do!
We have email at the pole and I get messages from my wife on a regular basis. I tell her I'm ok, but we keep it short. I mean, what's to tell? "It was cold today. I worked to assemble the telescope. I ate dinner with the guys. I slept in the friggin' tent." Tomorrow, the message will be the same.
By the way, you know what's the most popular movie at the pole? It's John Carpenter's "The Thing". I kid you not!
Anyway, I'd been three weeks at the South Pole and the job was done. I hadn't heard from Karen for about 3 days, but I was headed home and that was good enough for me! I got to Aukland and I took a few days to defrost. The heat felt good. I went to the beach and just lay in the sun. I needed a deep thaw and time to count my fingers and toes. When you get a woody down at the pole, you worry that maybe it's just frozen. Still no word from Karen and I was beginning to worry.
Three days in the New Zealand sun and I was headed home! I contacted the department and asked them to call my wife. She needed to know when I'd be home. They never got back to me. One flight after another, I passed the hours sleeping. Homeward bound, Hawaii was just a transfer point. I wanted to be home, to kiss my wife, and sleep in my own bed.
That brings me to my return to Hell.
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I stepped off the plane in Detroit and took a relaxed walk to the baggage claim. I was hoping to see Karen when I passed through security, but she wasn't there. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I'd been busy and she'd been distracted during the last weeks before I left and I was hoping that five weeks away might have improved our priorities. Then I spotted Gail, one of our very best friends. She works in the nursing school at the university. Gail and her husband, Jack, were like members of the family. It wasn't unusual for Karen and I to be sitting in our living room or out on the back deck when Gail and Jack would walk into the house and say, "Knock, knock!" Close friends don't wait for an invitation to come in.
Seeing Gail made me feel both happy and worried. I gave her a hug, kissed her on the cheek, and asked, "Where's Janet? I haven't heard from her in a week."
She looked a bit nervous, like she was searching for the right answer to my question. She smiled and said, "She couldn't make it. I came instead." She put her hands on both my arms. "It's good to see you. I'm glad you made it back okay."
"It was an adventure, but not what you might expect. It was more tedium than excitement. And it was cold; it was always cold!"
Gail giggled at that remark. "I'm glad you kept your sense of humor." She looked in my eyes for what seemed like a very long time as if trying to say something. "Let's get your bags."
We did, and then we sat for a cup of coffee before heading out to the car.
"So what did I miss?"
Gail just stared at me. She didn't blink, she didn't look away, and she didn't even close her mouth. There was sadness in her eyes. "Dick, I don't know how to tell you this. Those apple trees you planted behind the garage aren't going to make it. They're gone."
"They're gone? How do apple trees go? What happened to them?"
