Stormy weather

I have been profoundly iffy about all things Florida since the election of 2000 when Tim Russert pulled out his small white board and wrote “Florida, Florida, Florida”. Then, some guy, glasses resting on his forehead, gazed through a magnifying glass attempting to determine if a chad was hanging.

However, over the last many weeks, 2 hurricanes have drilled Florida. The first, Helene, went on to demolish large segments of the Carolinas and Georgia. A heart-rending 232 deaths have been reported across the 6 affected States.

Next, Hurricane Melton, out in the heart of the Gulf of Mexico, reached Category 5 status. Residents took the evacuation warnings seriously. Then, as it slid closer to land fell to a Category 3 and residents breathed a sigh of relief.

The fashion in which the people of the affected areas have managed themselves is most admirable.

Before continuing, I acknowledge there is a degree of hypocrisy involved when an Okie comments on another states bad weather.

Someone asked, “Why would anyone live in Florida?” Another answered, “It is a tropical paradise.” I thought but didn’t voice, “Only when compared to New Jersey’’ I saw television news reporter types standing out in the rain, leaning into the wind and telling us how bad it is and how bad it is going to get. Remember how to tell if you’re an Okie? When the tornado sirens blow, you go to the porch to see if you can spot the funnel.

“How do you measure the wind in Oklahoma?” “You nail a log chain to a fence post. When the chain stands out there is a breeze.”

As the log chain method of measure hints, not all Oklahoma windstorms circulate. Father’s Day of 2023 gave us a straight-line windstorm gave our trees a severe pruning and kept us without power for 7 days. Dolly Parton said, “Storms make trees take deep roots.” If she is correct, the roots of our lace bark elms will be reaching China any day now.

Weather jokes were always our deal. Florida was swamps and alligators. Of course, we had Will Rogers. Will famously said, “If you don’t like the weather in Oklahoma, wait a minute. It’ll change.”

And “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” I guess Will hadn’t heard about that Jewish Space Laser.

But then Crash Davis in the movie Bull Durham demonstrated that in baseball not all rainouts involve rain.

Rain. I think I will go to the back porch and converse with nature. Is there a thing such as a drought storm?

Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative. – Oscar Wilde

Hal McBride writes a column, Just Thinkin’, published each week.