It's in the air

from: http://anenglishwood.com/

It’s almost that time of year.  The best kind of weather is just around the corner…

I don’t know anyone else who thinks this is so, but to me the best weather-day is one where the temperature DROPS as the day goes on, a cold front sweeps down across the plains and the jet stream takes an unusual dip.  

In olden times of my youth the weatherman actually drew on a big map with markers. We weren’t privy to a constant stream of weather updates and forecasts; much less an entire channel devoted to weather phenomena. More often than not the early morning weather report I of my youth was one heard over crackling AM airwaves that had been coaxed in with artfully sculpted aluminum foil antennae extensions. “The weather” would be interspersed between obituaries, notices about Elks Club meetings, and the farm report-none of which I cared about and as a result I might miss the former and head down to the school bus stop wearing nothing warmer than a t-shirt.

At recess, my sole fifteen minutes of freedom that I relished so much that I STILL remember watching seconds tick by in anticipation; there might be the slightest tinge of pressure change in the air as we stepped out of that post-war red brick schoolhouse. I think we boisterous (=bad) boys were probably more boisterous (=bad) than usual because we could feel the change in the air. Having seen the same behavior in animals under similar circumstances, I have to wonder if we weren’t closer to our true nature then. We were certainly more in touch and resented having to go back to the veal-fattening pens of that institution of Taylorised education nirvana.  

By the end of the day, when the bus dropped me off, there would have been a true weather shift. The sky was the color of lead and it was actually COLD by this point.  I may have been regretting wearing only a t-shirt as I shivered and shuffle-stepped my way home, but this meant fall was here. 

Soon it would be: hunting season, camping season, NOT-tick/spider/chigger season.