You
don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.
-Bob Dylan
It’s
getting hotter. But here in our corner
of the upper Hudson Valley, it really doesn’t seem that bad this year. The
apple crop has not been destroyed by erratic
heat waves and frosts, as it was last year, and the harvest promises to be especially good. The Mohawk and the Schoharie
have been running high and boat traffic did have to be suspended last month on
the Erie Canal but so far there’s been nothing quite as bad as the huge floods
that followed Hurricane Irene in 2011. And the tornado that ripped through Rotterdam and Schenectady a couple weeks
ago may have been an anomaly, though some Assemblymen are worried
by increasing tornado activity in the state and have called for
an improved public warning system.
We
all know that it’s a lot worse this year elsewhere in America. Waves of tornados have crashed into Oklahoma.
Wildfires are out of control in Colorado. Not that we’re immune around here.
Last October Superstorm Sandy swept out of the warmest ocean temperatures ever recorded
off our coasts to cause the kind of damage none of us imagined possible.
But the mass media tell us that we’re rebuilding.
Republican Chris Christie and Democrat Barack Obama toured the Jersey shore
last month in a heartening display of bipartisanship. One reporter did nag the governor about whether New Jersey should have prepared for the future with
climate change in mind. “No,” said Mr. Christie, “cause I don’t think there’s
been any proof thus far that Sandy was caused by climate change.” President
Obama, who from time to time admits that the climate is changing, stood next to
him on the boardwalk but did not express any embarrassing disagreement with his
host.
People want to be positive. “The storm can’t beat us,” as more than one New Yorker has
said. Thus far, I haven’t heard anyone
say, “We’re New Yorkers and we’re a lot
tougher than carbon dioxide” but it seems many of us might feel that way.
If not, why would people be buying up Rockaway beach front like crazy, barely eight
months after nearby Breezy Point was obliterated? True, they won’t be getting the same deals on
federal flood insurance but these frantic buyers don’t seem that worried.
We
used to plant tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, corn, you name it, but with all
the rain we’ve been having lately, we finally switched to damp-resistant potatoes
and turnips. Marge and I both like to putter around in the garden so when the rain
finally tapered off on Monday, we went out to pull a few weeds. I ran an
extension cord so we could bring the radio with us and catch the noon weather
report.
To
be honest, we just like to hear Ray’s voice. He always starts out saying “Stay
tuned for the official North East Regional Authority ten day weather forecast.”
Then he reads a commercial, say, for a special railroad excursion to Whiteface
Mountain. After that, he might read another commercial for canning jars or
mosquito netting. And then he reads the forecast. There was nothing unexpected
in what Ray read on Monday. Just rain
today and tomorrow, followed by partly rainy, cloudy, more cloudy, more rain
and a flood warning for the end of the week.
Unlike
a lot of those guys who pass for weathermen on the radio, Ray has a double degree
in meteorology and geology from Union Siena and really knows what he’s talking
about. The Weather Bureau experts at NERA even consult with him on some of the
trickier predictions. Of course, there’s no sure way to foretell the weather
that isn’t tricky, unlike years ago when the satellites were still up. You
might say it’s all guesswork now although Ray would disagree. He’s a great one
for checking wind speed, barometric pressure and all that, and he even talks on
the telephone with weather men in the Central and Southern Regional
Authorities. He told me that he got in some trouble for that once, around the
time of those border incidents in Kentucky.
And
did I mention that Ray Rogers, the weatherman at WMHT Schenectady, is our very
own grandson?
Ray’s feature program is our favorite, a
fifteen minute slot billed as “Ray’s Rainy Day” broadcast every Monday and
Wednesday from 2:15 to 2:30. His angle is
to tell uplifting weather stories, like the little girl who survived for a
month in a collapsed building after the Great Boston Tornado or the boy who
warned his village when Superstorm Sammy surged all the way to Harpers Ferry.
Unfortunately,
we both dozed off after lunch and missed the show. Marge says that retirement
can make you really lazy.
We
went over that evening to play cards with the Feldmans. Bob retired from NERA Rail the same time I
did and has been a pal for years. As she dealt the first hand, his wife Jane
relayed some gossip about dead bodies floating in the Estuary that she heard
from Mary Hotaling, whose brother is a Hudson Riverwatcher
.
“Makes
me think of the time you and me were working the Scranton Line,” observed Bob.
“Do
you mean when the Chesapeake Bay moved way up into the Susquehanna?”
“Yeah,
all the bridges had been wiped out and there were bodies floating everywhere.”
“Funny,
we came through a year later and the Susquehanna was bone dry.”
“That
was the summer of the big wildfires, wasn’t it?”
“It
was a son of a bitch getting the coal train through that mess, wasn’t it?”
Looking at my pair of fives and three queens, I winked at Marge and said, “I
call.”
“We
nearly choked to death,” laughed Bob, laying down his aces and tens. “Full
house!”
“What
a bastard!” I was laughing along with Bob. We don’t play for serious money,
just fun.
Shuffling
the cards, I started to deal. “That fire was no joke. It burned out most of
Maryland before the hurricanes came.”
“You
remember those walls of fire on both sides of the tracks in Hagerstown? A
couple of boxcars burst into flames before we could disconnect them.”
“Hagerstown?
Don’t you mean New Washington?”
“I
keep forgetting they’d moved the federal government up there before they went
to Charlottesville.”
“Ever
since old D.C. was engulfed, the Feds keep looking for a perfect spot for
the new capital.”
“I
don’t know why they even bother to keep it all going, the President, Congress,
Supreme Court, that whole circus. It isn’t like they have any serious work to
do since the Regional Authorities stepped up.”
“The
USA is an important symbol, like the flag,” I reminded Bob. “It stands for our
freedom.”
