The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Saturday night at the End of the Road Tavern, Big Larry was pounding the weathered fir table he and Ed Grabowski, a newly unemployed log skidder, were sharing as they finished up a dinner of Donny’s Hot Wings and a plate of curly fries. Big L. was exercised over the Big City liberal weatherman calling the upcoming storm the result of Global Climate Change. “My global ass!” Larry roared. Ed seemed more inclined to drink away his recent lay-off than encourage environmental debate. As he got up for his 3rd or 5th or whatever bottle of Budweiser, he said to Larry, “Who the hell cares? The weather’s the damn weather. It changes. So what? Hit me again, Donny, willya?”

Donny slipped a hand into the cooler, corralled a Bud and knocked the cap off with a practiced expertise, then slid it two feet down the bar. “I dunno,” he ventured, “they might have a point. Heating up like a greenhouse, gotta change the winds, probably the ocean too.”

Larry wasn’t having any of it. “Aw, what next, Donny? We gonna quit cutting trees? Quit drivin our trucks? We gonna live like Afghans cause we’re afraid the weather’s too hot?”

Trapper Charlie suddenly came conscious at the end of the bar where he was watching college basketball between two teams he’d never heard of. “Ain’t like it’s gonna be all bad. We might become the new California.” Big Larry avowed how he’d rather get sent to Lake View Nursing Home down river than live in a new California with all those wine-sipping yuppie yahoos. Charlie said we’d still be the ones living here and Larry said he’d be damned if he’d live here then!

These are meteorologically interesting times, I guess, and we’ve debated this many a rainy night at the End of the Road. The scientists seem pretty much in agreement and the Hot Talk Radio folks are in total disagreement. I can tell you this — and I know it’s a small sampling poll — we aren’t going to do much else about it but argue, at least up here in UpCreek. It’ll be a cold day in hell before we change our minds or our habits. Donny says to no one in particular, “Maybe I should start stocking up on a higher class of wine. You know, just in case ….”

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When I was a kid, I don’t remember the weather folks being quite as apocalyptic as they seem to be now. Snowmageddons, polar vortexes, macrobursts, haboobs, thundersnows, bomb cyclones, firenadoes — the weather is not your friend these days. Is it because every weather event other than mist or sunny days is now attributed to climate change? Every flash flood, blizzard, hurricane, tornado and earthquake is usually followed by the obligatory addendum that the weather is becoming more unpredictable because of global warming. What we used to call where I came from, ‘variable’, a term we used facetiously to make the obvious point that weather changes about every day. A rainstorm rolled in after an afternoon of sun, we said, ‘sure is variable, this weather!’ We just never knew what was around the corner.

Now we keep records. We have satellites in geosynchronous orbit to keep an eye in the sky for what’s coming next. And we got computer simulations to make pretty accurate predictions days ahead of time. We know that 100 year floods come every other year now, hurricanes crank up to Category 5 more often and twice as fast, the polar vortexes drop further south and the haboobs look like latter day Dust Bowl versions. Last night on our TV weather the meteorologist warned us about temperatures dipping below freezing and, hold on to yer hats, the wind gusts would exceed 10 mph. Be prepared! he cautioned us sternly, this is serious and dangerous.

Seriously dangerous? C’mon, maybe if I go out in my birthday suit and jump in the sprinkler…. But hey, if it were really hazardous to my health, wouldn’t it have a name befitting the monstrosity of the meteorological event, something that would put the fear of god and climate change right into my bones? Category 11 CryoWind maybe. Or Force 7 Chillnado! Do NOT try to reach your car in the driveway, you will be hyperthermed in the time it takes to get your key in the lock. Stay indoors and hope to heaven the power doesn’t go off and you have no furnace to save your lily soft ass. Stay tuned to your television. Public announcements will be made every ten minutes. The news is not good. Bundle up, pray to your god and await further developments. Bombogenesis! The End is Near. If that doesn’t do you in, the pollution haboob will. Have a nice day. And keep your windows rolled up!

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