I like to think of what Mark Twain once said about the subject of today’s essay, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” You’ll be happy to know that I’m doing my part to do nothing about it.

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Subconscious Weather Watching

 

I’ve got this Jekyll & Hyde relationship with the weather. On the one hand, I go through the months from November to April hoping we’ll get a series of low-pressure fronts blowing through Southwest Colorado on a regular basis. Giving us intermittent snowstorms that result in (at minimum) piles of the white stuff amounting to three or four feet of fresh at a time. I find myself watching the Weather Channel on a regular basis, telling my cousin on L.A. that it needs to rain every two or three days for them (moisture in So. Cal. on Thursday results in snow for us in SW Colorado by Saturday), and thinking of appropriate sacrifices to the weather gods of old skis and 70s winter garb.

Alternatively, at this time of the year (late September-mid October) I don’t want it to get cloudy and the sky opening up every few days. Why? Over the past decade I’ve been doing my best “Grasshopper” imitation in a valiant attempt to make a little extra money and get ready for the upcoming winter months. Plus, there’s something truly amazing about what I like to call a, “Golden Autumn Day” (kudos to Van “The Man” Morrison for inspiration). “Indian Summer”, “Cobalt Blue-Sky Magnificent Days”, call it what you will, I love these types of fall moments. Something about the way the sunlight hits everything on days like this that makes them look like they’re perpetually glowing. The colors are just an added bonus.

When you think about it though, Fall has always been a somewhat schizophrenic time of year. Except if you’re living in the Southern Hemisphere where it’s going into spring, why did Hollywood (at least back in the old days of three main networks) cart out the new TV shows right when everything was slowly fading into winter hibernation? Doesn’t make much sense does it? Then again the illogical nature of this business practice didn’t even faze me when I was a kid. We might’ve only had a single TV channel when I was growing up in Silverton, but so what. This just meant my choices were somewhat limited.

The new cartoons on Saturday morning were about to start (life is good!), and since I had a sneak preview of what’s on tap through all the promos I observed in my new comic books, life was even sweeter. Heck, even a lot of the TV commercials were brand new (amazing what you can tolerate in instances such as this isn’t it?).

The new shows were usually enough to keep my mind occupied until mid-October. Then the Sears & Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, and Penny’s fall catalogues would arrive in the mail and foretold the coming holidays. Checking out all the new toys on display in those pages was truly one of the great highlights of Fall kid world.

One of my favorite ways to get outside and enjoy those golden autumn days is by collecting firewood to get through those cold winter nights ahead. Now most people know I’m not the most mechanically inclined person. In fact, the aftermath of me working with dangerous power tools such as a band saw or nail gun could be bloodier than the latest Hollywood teen slasher flick. Whenever you go out to collect firewood in the fall with me, best do the entire chainsaw cutting and trimming yourself. Let yours truly do all the collecting and stacking of the wood cords in the back of the truck.

Then when you get back home, make sure you explicitly show Mr. Swanson every little job involved with the operation of the wood splitter. That way you avoid having to take time out to transport him to the emergency entrance of the hospital for assorted broken digits.

Fortunately, other than having to climb a ladder to reach those high spots, most painting jobs are relatively risk free. Just involves having a steady hand, which I possess as the result of all that model building I did in my youth (inadvertent brain damage due to close proximity with the glue is another story).

Additionally, all that money my parents invested in my art school training hasn’t gone to total waste. For one thing, it’s refined my sure handedness when it comes to all those precise painting projects on the docket. Bet my father is somewhat perplexed when he realizes that.

So at this point (getting close to mid-October) we’re getting to the tail end of the fall preparation-for-winter period, and luckily most of the outdoor painting projects are getting close to being finished. One or two little things left to take care of, and then I can shift back into my winter weather-watching mode. Waking up every morning, hating another high-pressure system in store for us that day in the Four-Corners, and cursing to the high heavens that it isn’t snowing. So hard you can’t even see two feet in front of your face.