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Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

We’d be stuck for words if it weren’t for the weather.

We have an eternal preoccupation with the weather. Our memories of the weather are both a distant memory and a minute ago. No matter how good we feel, we’re under the weather. We say the weather doesn’t always agree with us. That’s true, but here’s a news flash: no one always agrees with us.

I met a tractor-trailer rig pulling a wind turbine tower section as I drove past a solar farm. A tower tower and a farm raising rays. Is a solar energy spill called a nice day?

In Oklahoma, I watched cattle lined up in single file to take advantage of the shadow provided by a wind turbine in a treeless prairie pasture.

A college roommate of mine enjoyed sitting outside during thunderstorms. He found it an in-lightning experience. A classmate worked at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. He had the bad Midas Touch — everything he touched turned to cold. A friend told me (he was telling everyone) he was sick of the 90-degree weather. He didn’t ask how I was doing, but I said, “I’m melting,” in what I hoped sounded like the Wicked Witch of the West from “The Wizard of Oz.”

We whine about the weather. It’s too hot, too cold, too humid, too rainy, too dry, too snowy, too windy, too stormy, too windy, too sunny, too cloudy, too foggy, etc. We worry when the weather is too nice. We fear it foretells bad weather. Do we get the weather we deserve? A happy place for the weather can be difficult to find.

On mornings when I couldn’t tell if I was wet from the shower or sweat, my mother told me to take a jacket because you never know. Weather is changeable. That’s why mothers remind offspring to take a jacket, parka, umbrella, snowshoes, sunscreen, raincoat, insect repellant or kilts because you never know.

Time flies when we’re having weather. “Cold enough for you?” quickly becomes a scorcher on which we hope to find parking in the shade.

I grew up in Minnesota as a solar-, wind- and firefly-powered child. Clothes on a line were dried by sun and wind, and windmills creaked in the breeze. I learned that a cloud of gnats and mosquitoes provided little shade, but it was still shade. I monitored the clouds—cirrus business in storm predicting. We did as much work as we could before it got too hot, but the heat was impatient and refused to wait. Our sweat stains were high mileage.

When I was in high school, back before any giant wind turbine had caused a single wind chime to produce white noise, a friend had been kissing a girl when he drove his car into a city fire hydrant. The story went around that he’d driven smack dab into the fire hydrant. Fortunately, he was moving faster than his car. The only injuries were to the car and the fire hydrant. The hydrant dispensed water. What did my friend do? What could he do? The weather had trained him. He turned on the windshield wipers.

If we were ducks, water would roll off our backs. We’re not good at letting anything roll off our backs. If we were ducks, we could stand comfortably in our bare feet on ice. Humans are known for getting cold feet. Ducks have a counter-current heat exchange system between the arteries and veins in their legs. Warm arterial blood flowing to the feet passes close to cold venous blood returning from the feet. The arterial blood warms the venous blood, dropping in temperature as it does. This means the blood flowing through the feet is cool. This keeps the feet supplied with enough blood to keep them warm enough to avoid frostbite. A duck’s leg has tendons and bones instead of muscles and nerves like ours, which need more oxygenated blood.

I plan on continuing to think warm thoughts while watching the ducks stand on the ice.

Until then, I’ll leave you with the wise words of E. B. White, “Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”

I’ll add that there will be weather tomorrow.

Al Batt’s columns appear in the Tribune every Wednesday.