I know, because I was driving in it.

One day, when Wayne and I were teenagers, we went with his mom and dad and sister to visit some Schiess relatives. I'm not sure where it was, but it was quite a drive inland from Santa Monica. Maybe Downey or West Covina. No matter.

That evening we drive home, and it was foggy. A dense fog, thick fog. We lived in Santa Monica, a beach town. We were used to the morning fog, accustomed to hearing fog horns. But the morning fog would burn off every day. The fog we drove home in that long ago night was not about to burn off.

Goldie, Wayne's dad, was driving, always sure of himself, and always right--although I didn't know these things about him then. No doubt, though, he was challenged by this fog. We all watched the road, looking for lane lines or signs, anything to guide us. Whether or not that helped, I don't know. We couldn't see much of anything. It was that foggy.

Before too long, though, we could see tail lights in front of us. Hooray! A car, going the direction we were. That gave a sense of safety. We could follow those lights and hope he knew where he was going. We could hope. So that's what we did.

We followed that car for what seemed a long time. I don't know how long. When it turned and stopped, we were right behind it. That was puzzling. I think a man got out of the car. We discovered that we had followed him to his driveway. We didn't stay long in his driveway before Goldie backed away.

Was Goldie embarrassed? Not that I remember. I don't remember if we all laughed about it. And I have no idea how we made it home, but no doubt it was a long, slow, feel-our-way drive. Obviously, we did get home. Here I am more than 50 years later telling about it.

And why am I telling about it? Because this morning, here in Boise, on the freeway, in parking lots, on city streets, that's the kind of fog we had. A thick Southern California fog. No kidding.