Whacky Weather Warrior

Got a little snow last night, here at the northern end of southern nowhere . When I landed in Memphis yesterday afternoon, back from a quick business trip to Chicago and Kenosha, it was snowing to beat the band. We broke out of the clouds just over Memphis and I thought we had flown back to Chicago by mistake--everything on the ground was white. Luckily, the roads were still clear and I was able to get out of Elvisville with little problem. It was snowing hard on the highway as I headed southeast, but I outran the heavy stuff and by the time I drove through the blessed gates of Eegeebeegee and arrived at the center of the universe, hardly a flake was falling. Overnight, the edge of a storm headed up the Ohio River valley left an inch or two of accumulation--already melting by the time I dragged my sorry butt out of the rack this morning.

Weather extremes seem to follow me around. When I was going to a school in Norfolk in the summer of '95, we had a hurricane making a beeline for us. The forecasters were certain a Category 3 storm was going to roll right up our alley. Classes were shut down and I, still being relatively young and stupid, jumped in my truck and drove the 12 hours back to Montgomery, Alabama where Miss Brenda and the kids were. As soon as I got 6 hours west of the coast, that hurricane stopped on a dime and started drifting off to the northeast. When classes resumed the next day (yep, I drove home, kissed Miss Brenda, hugged the kids and jumped back in the truck for another 12 hours) my Army buddy in the class hung the nickname "Hurricane Magnet" on me.

Seems everywhere I go in my life, that locale is in for some freak weather. Most recent case in point: when we arrived here at the northern end of southern nowhere at the end of last March, the temps were in the 70's and everything had been blooming and budding for several weeks. Within the next week, we endured a cold snap that frost-killed nearly everything that had bloomed. That killing cold-snap was followed by 4 months wherein nary a drop of rain fell. When it did start raining in the vicinity, there was always a dry corridor that persisted right over my head. Did I mention we had a tornado recently? Is there a pattern here? Or am I just being paranoid?

We moved to Atlanta in the fall of '92. Fifteen years ago this month, a blizzard hit Atlanta. Atlanta doesn't get "blizzards!" That storm was more like an inland tropical system--with hurricane force winds.

We moved to the Redneck Riviera in the fall of 2003. They hadn't had a hurricane of any mention in many years. Need I remind you how many hurricanes there were down there the next two years?

The year Miss Brenda and I spent in Seoul, South Korea, we got the heaviest snow Seoul had seen in a generation.

Maybe I'm the real culprit for Global Warming...