Dark Night in Tucson

July 1969. Dupont Circle, Washington, DC. The plan was simple. The four of us -- Alice, Alison, me, and Bill -- would camp cross country and down to Tucson. Bill's friend lived there, and he had a swimming pool.

And as we were soon to find out, a spider monkey. The little creature wore an infant-sized diaper that came up under "his" armpits. Do monkeys have armpits? Yes. Do monkeys like miniature marshmallows? Yes.

Do monkeys like it when their "mom" leaves for a trip to Denver? Absolutely not.

Have you ever heard a monkey cry? Let me just say, you don't want to. The sound is the same little whoop over and over again. Marshmallows are the only remedy. The small one fit like a plug. A silencing plug. With no harm done.

Nobody told us that the heat could almost boil that pool water in the daytime. But as soon as the sun went down, Tucson came to life. Grocery stores, open all night long, sold cold beer and wine and a fresh supply of miniature marshmallows.

One night towards the end of July around midnight on the way back from the store, the sky opened like a bathtub faucet and sent rivers down the sidewalks and arroyos, those dried up river beds that you figure belonged to the sidewinders and horned toads of Lone Ranger fame.

Black sky. Sheets of rain. And then under our tires, the sound of squishing. The road looked like it was lifting off the ground. And it was. The road was now a channel for thousands of frogs.

It's a lucky day in the desert when frogs are happy in the rain . . .