Although I have logged many thousands of miles on airplanes in coach crisscrossing the United States and also Canada, I rarely go overseas. I’m not sure how much sense this story makes, but it describes my mental numbness.

JET LAG DIARY

This huge draft horse of an airplane takes off from the Sydney airport. Australia, not Nebraska. It’s too big to be real. It’s like a Popular Mechanics prediction. I have no idea how it flies. Magic, the flight attendant said.

I have deprived myself of sleep last night in an effort to trick my body clock. I set my watch to Colorado time. One-thirty P.M., Sydney time, becomes 9:30 P.M. the night before. At midnight, by my watch, I doze off . . . for four hours. My eyes itch, my muscles ache, and my brain thinks it’s noon!

This morning I woke at 4:00 A.M. I lay there waiting for the sun to come up. By 5:00, I was out in the driveway, diggin’ up an electrical wire I’d buried with the water line to Dionicio’s casita. It is in a trench five inches wide and four feet deep! By 6:15, I was back inside and called everyone I could think of who might be up. They weren’t!

Last night, I dozed off during supper. I’m dreaming Australian dreams. Kangaroos stick up out of the tall grass like young boys wearing Mickey Mouse ears. We top a dirt track doing 70 kph to find the road filled with sheep! I’m trying to adjust to the weightless stirrups of the Australian stock saddle.

STILL WAKING UP AT 4:00 A.M.! I find the shorted-out splice in my buried wire about 5:30 A.M. I walk down to the pasture to check on the two ol’ cows left to calve. I think I see a kangaroo on the slope above the creek. By 3:00 in the afternoon, my eyes are burning and my brain is mush! I vow to stay awake till 10:00 P.M. By 6:00, I’m asleep in my chair.

Tonight I’m tellin’ my poetry to the cowboys in Clay Center. It’s hot. We’re all sweating. My body is fighting my memory for control. I forget a line.

Last night, I dreamed I was laying in the muck with my arm up a cow, trying to bring the calf’s malpresented head around. The two Australian vets who had generously offered to allow me to show ’em the “American way” were solicitously bracing my feet and encouraging my efforts. I woke with my right arm tangled in the sheets and my wife standing beside the bed with a surprised look on her face!

I slept twelve hours straight! Woke up at 11:00 A.M. It’s suppertime now, and I’m still goin’ strong. Maybe I’m back on track.

After giving some clear-headed thought to my jet lag problem, I’ve concluded that it’s no wonder I was in such a state. I spent so much time down under, all the blood ran to my head!