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Perspective: The Very Windy Day

Jimmy Lau
/
Pixabay

If you’re ridiculous like me, you think the weather owes you something, and when it doesn’t give you what you deserve, you get grumpy.  

 

The very windy day of November 27 made me very grumpy. The weekend before, I had hired a couple of hearty Beloit College students, Bob and Blain, and we worked all day raking leaves. Then the wind got huffy and re-filled the yard…not to mention the gutters. Leaf removal is already a most unsatisfying chore, and all that work had just been annulled.  

 

As I gazed out the window that windy Wednesday morning at a leaf-full yard, I said to Breja and Iris, “If that doesn’t make you depressed, nothing will.” And immediately regretted it. What kind of squish gets depressed by the wind?  

 

So, I decided to reassert my bravery and go for a run. I took the black dog Shady on a four-mile loop of country roads around Afton. At one point, on Bass Creek Road, the wind got so indecent it filled the sky with the leaves of the stubborn red oaks -- who don’t give up their foliage without a fight. It looked as if a flock of starlings had taken flight. I thought, OK, wind, if you can do that… 

 

When I got back, I did what I often do, which is to visit the National Weather Service website. Turns out November 27 was indeed a Very Windy Day. Everywhere. From Arizona to North Carolina, the Weather Service had issued wind advisories. Just the thought of people across the country feeling rooked by the weather gave me comfort. You ridiculous people, don’t you know: The weather owes you nothing! 

 

I’m Chris Fink and that's my perspective. 

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