The fog

Once every two weeks, we Bulletin reporters get the pleasure of working a 6 a.m. shift.

Call it bad short-term memory, but I'm always a little surprised by the number of folks on the road at 5:45. Local oil delivery trucks. Tradesmen's personal heavy-duty pickups with such bumper stickers as "My child got your honor student pregnant." Long-haul truckers jostling in and out of the left-hand lane to get around slower cars headed for the Route 2A Mohegan Sun exit ramp.

There's always at least one car headed to the flyover ramp with plates from semi-distant states. This morning, it was a sedan from Pennsylvania — a state usually no closer than a three-hour drive from this part of Connecticut. With a right swerve, it was gone, made fuzzy by the fog that fell on southeastern Connecticut like a thick, napping jungle cat accidentally rolling out of a tree on the African veldt.

(My apologies, Carl...but we will always have our hog butcher, our player with railroads.)

The dampening, darkening effect of the fog was stronger than I had ever seen before. My usual gauge - the glowing Mohegan Sun hotel tower - was completely obliterated without even a hint of light.

I've spent the last 10 months listening to local and regional economic experts wonder aloud about what our area would be like if Connecticut's two casinos had never been built or if they suddenly closed. I've seen the future - or maybe it was just a peek into a past many in this region remember - and it was dark.