Jay Cronley: Deliver us from evil weather
BY JAY CRONLEY World Staff Columnist
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
7/12/11 at 3:54 AM
The temperature was 106, 107, Death Valley marathon race weather, where the competitors train for months in hot houses and creep along like turtles under the unforgiving sun that seems so hot you feel like ducking when it passes overhead.
And there came a scratching from around the front door.
My male dog, just back in from a quick sweep out back where he lifted a leg while trotting so as to limit his time and exposure to the heat, looked at the scratching sound and put his head back near the air conditioning vent, passing on defending the homestead this time.
A man was on the porch.
His face was purple, his breathing labored.
I asked if he was all right.
He nodded.
Above average: This is one of those occasions when certain of the television weather people can be held responsible for what's going on out there.
That's because I saw several of them put forward, with the changing of the seasons, long-range temperature and precipitation forecasts.
On each weather board, our summertime temperatures were predicted to be average.
One hundred degrees at 10 at night is not average.
Missing a rain prediction is one thing. Missing an entire season is another. It hasn't been average one hour.
If somebody can't come close to getting a season right, how can we believe that he or she can correctly hit anything?
Another continuing local television saga is the reality-type emotions being experienced by KOTV anchor Tara Vreeland, who appears to be close to wilting or taking a swing at one of the meteorologists over the never-ending heat predictions. Like many of the rest of us, she finds the forecasts of 104 degrees forever to be rather depressing one moment, comically evil the next.
You've got mail: The mail carriers have it as bad as anybody; probably worse.
There's nowhere to hide, no time to stop; cutbacks in personnel have resulted in longer routes.
That's who was on my porch - my red-hot mail carrier, delivering three requests for charitable contributions and some advertising fliers.
Days like this, they should deliver bills, checks and handwritten material only.
"Thanks," I said for what he had brought me.
And there he went, hot-footing it toward the next house. And the next. And all the rest. Bringing the next day, another like this one, that much closer.
Nobody deserves Christmas in July more.
Original Print Headline: Deliver us from evil weather
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