Winter forecasts all folked up

(671 words)

You can gauge the severity of the coming winter by the volume of my screams whenever I hear folklorists tell me they can gauge the severity of the coming winter based on bugs and nuts.

They say they can tell the winter will be harsh if the wooly buggers have more black than brown, or if the nuts are extra thick.

I have a backyard full of acorns, many more than usual, but I have no way of determining whether they’re more thick than other years because I’ve never bitten into one so there’s point of reference.

I guess I’d have to ask a squirrel.

He’d probably tell me I’m nuts.

Bee activity, early bird migration and fall foliage brilliance are other folk ways homespun observers rely on to make themselves appear wise and weather omnipotent.

I think people who believe they can divine the future based on bug observation enjoy feeling superior to those of us who simply flip on The Weather Channel.

I won’t vouch for the network’s accuracy either, but I know there are many on-air female forecasters I’d rather watch than any bugs.

The exception being maybe Bugs Bunny.

I’d google “bunny forecast” to see if there’s any hare forecast folklore, but I’m afraid I’d get distracted by something cheekily produced by Hugh Hefner.

I’m predicting another six months of people dwelling too much on bitter winter forecasts. It’s all some people talk about.

Then there are all the snappy little weather proverbs that sound like they were handed down by some meteorological Moses:

Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky at dawn, sailors take warning. 

Ring around the moon, rain real soon

When clouds appear like showers, the earth will soon be refreshed by showers

There once was a man from Nantucket . . .

That last one is non-weather related. I just threw it in because the recollection of a good filthy limerick always brightens my day more than a moderate low pressure system sweeping east up the Ohio River Valley.

I guess the reason I get ticked over folklore forecasts is because the folklorists I know always predict the winter’s going to really suck.

Listen, all winters suck to some degree. There’s no point in rubbing it in.

You never hear your typical folklorist predicting anything rosy.

They never say, you know, the thickness of my dog’s butt fur means it’ll snow on Christmas Eve and that’s pretty much it. There will be a few days in January when golf will be a challenge, but this winter’s gonna be pretty cool. And I mean that in karmic sense.”

No, it’s always, “The wooly buggers say it’s going to be the worst winter since ’76, with dangerous January blizzards coinciding with a Steeler playoff loss to the hated Patriots. As for spring training, unseasonable weather means it won’t begin until the Fourth of July.”

I’d like to see what they’d say if a wooly bugger told them — actually told them — “Psst, buddy, you know that climate change thingie? It’s real. The problem is there is way too much hot air — and most of it’s coming from your mouth!”

Here’s how I feel about winter:

Bring it on.

If the winters of ’10 with its punishing snows and ’14 with its below freezing temperatures through April didn’t kill me, nothing will. Do even a little better than either of those soul-devouring monsters and I’ll be singin’ in the slush.

Let’s all understand the modern forecasts are pretty good and accurate for about four days. After that it’s a crap shoot.

So let’s all try and remain cheerful.

Winter’s here. Let’s enjoy it for the next six weeks, endure it for the six weeks after that, and save the real bitching about how much we all hate winter for late February when we’re all on fire for Spring.

Don’t bug me by telling us our nuts’ll all be freezing come February. 

That’s the squirrels’ problem. Not mine.

Let them get their own thermal underwear.

Related . . .

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All snowmen are abominable

Impatient to be outdoors and dancin’ in my underwear

Winter’s over; Keith heads south

In praise of, yikes, winter

Roll Tide: the last day of winter

How much did I hate "Revenant?" Worse than winter

(751 words)

I used to think the longest winter was 2010 because it lasted from Halloween through near Easter.

I was mistaken.

The longest winter lasted 2 hours and 36 minutes.

Yes, me and some buddies went to see “The Revenant.”

I hated it.

It’s like the producers fully embraced the maxim that revenge is a dish best served cold, like below-zero/frost-bit/snot-dripping-from-the-unruly-mustache cold.

It dragged on for so long my buddy speculated aloud that pitchers and catchers were bound to soon report.

It was so bad it made me grateful when it finally, mercifully ended so I could go outdoors and get smacked in the face with actual winter.

Worse, now I’ll forever relate true winter with “Revenant” winter.

For instance, we’re still digging out from about two feet of snow from the weekend blizzard.

And, God help me, I’m finding charming things to say about real winter.

This was the weekend we go on our annual Rodell Winter Escape.

It’s not to Disney, Key West or someplace graced with two-digit highs.

No, we go to Sharon, Pennsylvania, which is about 90 minutes north of Pittsburgh. Been doing it for about eight years.

Now, bar aficionados will understand immediately why we go to Sharon. It’s the home of Quaker Steak & Lube, one of the finest bar restaurants in Pennsylvania. It’s been there since 1974. There are now 53 locations in nine states (one in Toronto), but none of them have the heirloom charm of the original.

I used to road trip there with buddies and then with Val before kids.

Then one day about eight years ago after a long drive we needed to overnight and Sharon seemed logical. We happened to pull into a Holiday Inn Express!

Now, many of you are aware of my travel writing bona fides. I’ve guested at The Breakers, The Greenbrier and many of North America’s finest resorts.

In short, I ain’t no hick.

But on that day, the H.I.E. near Sharon took a back seat to none. The staff was friendly, they had a happy hour wine bar and a chocolate fondue fountain in the lobby — they were cheap!

And they had an indoor pool.

For road-weary parents of two little girls, it was perfect.

So we made it a winter tradition to go to Sharon. The girls shop at Grove City Outlets on the way up, we swim, get a pizza delivered (it’s part of a hotel stay package) and then on Saturday go to The Lube for a wing feast.

We’ve had the girls at some swanky joints, yes, but I’ll wager they’ll remember our Sharon nights as fondly and warmly as any.

Or not warmly.

Because we always try and time the weekend to the worst weather. It makes enjoying the in-door pool that much more fun.

Turns out we were about 40 miles from having one of our best weekends be one of the worst.

That’s how far we were from being stuck for 30 hours on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

I can’t imagine how my family would have reacted had we been marooned with 500 other motorists in the blizzard that shutdown the ‘pike. 

Stories of heroism and cowardice continue to emerge. People shared provisions and warmth and held kangaroo courts when panicky motorists endangered others with escape attempts. I won’t be surprised if we hear reports of ketchup and cannibalism.

Now, that’s a movie I’d love to see.

As it was, I’m immensely relieved we missed the part of the storm that caused so much misery to so many.

We made it home safely and I got to spend the rest of the weekend alternately frolicking in the winter wonderland with our daughters and shoveling about two-feet of snow from about 350 feet of driveway.

Truly, this morning I’m feeling like Hercules, only Hercules high on Advil.

I didn’t think I could do it. There was just too much snow. In fact, I told Val, “I don’t think I can do it.”

She burst out laughing. I’m still uncertain whether the laughter was her way of saying, hon, I know you can do it or her way of saying, hon, you have no choice but to do it.

Either way, I did it.

And it was hell. I hated every second of it. It was more misery than a mortal man should have to endure.

Still not as bad as having to sit through “The Revenant!”

Related . . .

Winter’s over; Keith heads south

How my facial hair determines winter’s over

Impatient to be outdoors and dancing in my underwear

In praise of, yikes, winter?

Of mallbergs, fenderdung & made-up winter words

It's time to sell hurricane naming rights

I think it’s time huge corporations are allowed to bid for hurricane naming rights the way they do with football stadiums.

This would generate millions to reduce the federal deficit and give corporate branding mavens more muscular platforms than, say, a 30-second commercial bumping up against “Hawaii Five-0.”

Plus, consumers often abandoned by shifty insurance policies could save time if we could say we got screwed by Hurricane Aflac or Hurricane State Farm instead of saying we got screwed by Hurricane Katrina and then screwed all over again by Aflac or State Farm.

Blame or deny global warming, but we can all agree the weather is becoming more wildly chaotic. We need to seize this opportunity before even conservatives understand Earth is becoming kindling.

They’ve been naming hurricanes since 1953, which strikes me as odd because there have been hurricanes throughout history right up until 1953.

It’s not like naming things was unfashionable prior to the Eisenhower administration. We’ve been naming children for thousands of years and they can be at least as destructive as your typical Cat 4.

Initially, weather systems that reached tropical storm intensity were given exclusively female names. That must have made for some interesting cocktail party chatter at the U.S. Weather Bureau.

The competition must have been fierce among the male meteorologists deeming wives and girlfriends worthy of being associated with a really big and messy blow.

Of course, that kind of blatant misogyny could not endure. Who did these petty weathermen think they were? Members of Augusta National?

So the naming system became gender neutral. Now the World Meteorological Organization creates and maintains the annual lists. Names are used on a six-year rotation, with the deadliest or most notable storms having their names retired. So this year’s list may look familiar to 2005 hurricane buffs.

The first tropical storm or hurricane of the year has a name that begins with the letter “A,” and the second begins with the letter “B,” and so on. For reasons I could not detect, the letters “Q” and “U” are left unused.

So -- drum roll, please -- here are the names for the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season: Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Don, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katia (subbing for the now retired Katrina), Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rina, Sean, Tammy, Vince and Whitney.

For a list that is likely to cause multi-billion dollars in damage, the names are a rather tame bunch.

Don? Cindy? Irene? Those don’t sound like hurricanes. They sound like characters from “Brady Bunch” re-runs.

It’s all one big bore.

If we weren’t so darned PC these days, I’d suggest we name all hurricanes after popular males names from countries with which we’re at war. I think it would inspire a sense of national unity and purpose if the country knew Hurricane Mahmoud was about to slam into Galveston.

It would certainly provoke more of a conspiratorial frenzy around Fox News than Hurricane Gert will.

It might sound contrary to prevailing political turns toward civility, but how about allowing the sitting president to name the big nasties?

You’d think that maybe some political commentators might temper their criticisms if they knew years from now their grandchildren would hear in school about how one of history’s most destructive natural disasters was Hurricane Pat Buchanan.

But that might be unduly harsh.

That’s why, as with everything else in America, I say we leave it up to the wisdom of our mightiest corporations.

When a hurricane begins roiling the waters off the Virgin Islands, the Weather Channel can host a gala where bids are taken to earn hurricane naming rights. It’d be as ballyhooed as NFL Draft night on ESPN.

Of course, insurance companies and big drug manufacturers will swamp the proceedings, but Hurricane Hallmark would lend itself to great commercial opportunities.

And what would it be without a little whimsy.

Can you imagine the trending boost Flexifoil would get by sponsoring a hurricane with wind gusts of over 155 mph?

Never herd of Flexifoil?

They make kites.

And getting a storm of publicity for any kite manufacturer sponsoring a hurricane is bound to be a real breeze.