Mary Oakey
Why local television devotes so much time to the weather is a puzzlement.
Young people put weather news on the same attic shelf as analog clocks, AM/FM radio and the dial telephone.
Strike young people from the weather audience. While we’re at it, strike working people with cell phones.
That leaves people like me. I have a cell phone, but I rely on clocks, a wrist watch, and radios to tell me where I am in the day. When my grandsons disappear, the first place I look is my study where there is a desk model telephone. The boys like calling their parents on the numbers I had them memorize when they were little.
[Read another essay from Ed Cullen about the sweltering heat of summer here.]
I am teaching a young visitor to my garden the workings of a sun dial. We are in basic astronomy at the moment, and Conner’s attention drifts.
“Why,” he asks, “do you have a sun dial?” And, thus, begins a chat about the importance of a liberal arts education.
Conner is five, but his day is more structured than mine. He has school, soccer, and martial arts. I have oceans of free time.
Television knows this about people my age: We are, essentially, bums who have made our own provisions for life after the work-a-day world. Most people like me refer to themselves as retired. I’m comfortable with bum.
I am a time bum. I have time for weather forecasts that tell me little, a garden that lets me appreciate the produce section of grocery stores, and garden visits from a boy not as tall as a mature eggplant.
“Ed, what’s an eggplant?” Conner has more questions than mosquitoes in a rain barrel.
“I planted an egg,” I say. “You’re looking at the result.”
“Is that true?”
“No.”
Conner says I’m silly, but I’m just making up for years of pretending to be serious.
The weather forecasters are serious. It’s not rain chances for Thursday. It’s “Now, let’s look at rain chances for OUR Thursday.” That lets us own the weather. We can do nothing about it, but it’s ours.
All the weather segments in a newscast make me wonder if something’s going on that television isn’t telling me about. Do we really have this much time to devote to the weather or is it a distraction from forest fires, shooting people in supermarkets, big countries laying waste to smaller neighbors, COVID, cancer, and other catastrophes?
But weather forecasts warn us of floods and hurricanes. Yes, and they remind us that we do little to prevent flooding. If we wish to avoid hurricanes, should we move and take our chances with monster tornadoes in the Midwest and wild fires in the West?
The clock on the wall tells me it’s time to survey the garden and perform the daily tasks of weeding and watering. The weather forecast “calls” for rain, but I know that call often goes unheeded by the clouds.
I once resisted summer weather until I realized it was better to embrace it. Work and exercise in the morning. Lay up in the afternoon. Smile kindly at the weather person with his or her colorful lightning bolts, fronts, systems, long-range guesses, and commercials.
The phone in my pocket announces that rain is close. I await confirmation from the weather guy.
