Hating The Weathermen
At the end of the sixties, I came back from living abroad to find the entire nation furious at the Weathermen. In Chicago that word alone was enough to elicit a sputtering and incoherent rage from most adults.
For weeks I wondered what the meteorologists could have done to deserve to be hated. Finally someone told me some fantastic story about protestors who set off bombs in department stores. I found it hard to believe what I was hearing. I had just returned from living in Israel where tales of bombs in department stores might have sounded unfortunately credible. This was Chicago. Chicago was in America--quiet, safe, secure America--not a place for explosions in public buildings.
In the years that followed I sometimes told the story of my confusion to illustrate culture shock. It was a light and easy laugh on me.
Lately I've aged into someone who actually is growing to hate the weathermen and this time it is the meteorologists I'm talking about.
I'm aging into someone who tracks weather avidly and refuses to travel--or at least avoids traveling--if I think the weather will be in the least inclement. My excuse is that my little car is only a few inches off the ground and spins in the center of intersections whenever roads are at all slick. However, many of my aging friends, including those who drive the equivalent of civilian tanks, seem to share this aversion to weather.
When we were younger, nothing stopped us. Come rain, snow, wind or hail, we got in those cars and went. Regardless of weather, we got done what had to be gotten done. Now we just don't do weather.
Worse still, we phone to warn each other of coming weather and to calculate together what we should cancel and what we mustn't.
Once you start viewing weather as a showstopper, you really need accurate predictions. And the meteorologists are not accurate so much as they are alarmist. They are stopping us from living our lives in full for no particularly good reason because their dire warnings never materialize. They are crying wolf.
Today, for example, I had to drive across the county to retrieve my cat from the vet. Yesterday my cat had his teeth cleaned. He had to spend the night at the vet’s to sleep off his drugs, but I knew that if he had any moment of consciousness overnight, he’d be frightened and longing for me. I had to get to my kitty. This morning the weathermen were giving dire warnings of pea soup fog. They swore that visibility was zero in my county. Well I HAD to go get my cat. Shake and quake I might, but I had to go get that cat. Imagine how I felt driving along and discovering that visibility wasn't all that bad after all.
The only reason I can imagine for the meteorologists to be so hysterical with so little reason might be their desire to make themselves more interesting to the television audience. Perhaps they are paid more for keeping the viewing audience in a constant panic.
Well, all that drama won't work to their benefit in the long run. With a growing number of aging Boomers hanging on their every word to find a red light/green light to life's everyday activities, exaggerated weather reports are not going to bring those weathermen any love. Those weathermen need to exercise a little restraint.
For weeks I wondered what the meteorologists could have done to deserve to be hated. Finally someone told me some fantastic story about protestors who set off bombs in department stores. I found it hard to believe what I was hearing. I had just returned from living in Israel where tales of bombs in department stores might have sounded unfortunately credible. This was Chicago. Chicago was in America--quiet, safe, secure America--not a place for explosions in public buildings.
In the years that followed I sometimes told the story of my confusion to illustrate culture shock. It was a light and easy laugh on me.
Lately I've aged into someone who actually is growing to hate the weathermen and this time it is the meteorologists I'm talking about.
I'm aging into someone who tracks weather avidly and refuses to travel--or at least avoids traveling--if I think the weather will be in the least inclement. My excuse is that my little car is only a few inches off the ground and spins in the center of intersections whenever roads are at all slick. However, many of my aging friends, including those who drive the equivalent of civilian tanks, seem to share this aversion to weather.
When we were younger, nothing stopped us. Come rain, snow, wind or hail, we got in those cars and went. Regardless of weather, we got done what had to be gotten done. Now we just don't do weather.
Worse still, we phone to warn each other of coming weather and to calculate together what we should cancel and what we mustn't.
Once you start viewing weather as a showstopper, you really need accurate predictions. And the meteorologists are not accurate so much as they are alarmist. They are stopping us from living our lives in full for no particularly good reason because their dire warnings never materialize. They are crying wolf.
Today, for example, I had to drive across the county to retrieve my cat from the vet. Yesterday my cat had his teeth cleaned. He had to spend the night at the vet’s to sleep off his drugs, but I knew that if he had any moment of consciousness overnight, he’d be frightened and longing for me. I had to get to my kitty. This morning the weathermen were giving dire warnings of pea soup fog. They swore that visibility was zero in my county. Well I HAD to go get my cat. Shake and quake I might, but I had to go get that cat. Imagine how I felt driving along and discovering that visibility wasn't all that bad after all.
The only reason I can imagine for the meteorologists to be so hysterical with so little reason might be their desire to make themselves more interesting to the television audience. Perhaps they are paid more for keeping the viewing audience in a constant panic.
Well, all that drama won't work to their benefit in the long run. With a growing number of aging Boomers hanging on their every word to find a red light/green light to life's everyday activities, exaggerated weather reports are not going to bring those weathermen any love. Those weathermen need to exercise a little restraint.
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