Lessons on weather from Grandpa Bob and weird Midwest springs
I’m not sure when spring weather became so weird.
I used to look forward to spring. The return of Daylight Saving Time. Play ball! The end of the cold, dark days of winter. A few more showers, and always windy, but more sunshine in the spring.
Now, spring is more about rain. And more rain. Dark skies. Scary winds. Tornadoes. Fallen trees. Power outages. Rainouts. Floods. Startling phone emergency alerts after midnight.
Maybe that’s always been the case. Now I’m paying more attention. But spring weather in the Midwest seems different. June seems more like a spring month. September seems like summer. Our October weather is like San Diego’s weather, with fall’s foliage.
During the silence of a recent spring storm, I thought about my Grandpa Bob Tockstein.
Gramps had a few simple theories about weather. I think of them when weather gets weird. He kept things simple. He never seemed shaken or scared.
He was a retired laborer. Smoked a pipe and cigars. Chewed Red Man. He spent a lot of time at the Cahokia Downs horse track. He volunteered weekdays at Immaculate Concepcion Catholic Church in Centreville. Played poker a few days a week with his buddies.
He had a high school degree, I think. I never saw diplomas in his old Centreville home. But Gramps was one of the smartest men I have known.
When it came to weather, he said, we should not change our plans because of it. “Nobody knows what it will be doing in an hour much less tomorrow,” he’d say.
Need a forecast? “Open the window. Walk outside.”
Did he listen to TV or radio weather forecasts? “They wear a nice suit and flip a coin,” he said.
Thunder? “Angels bowling,” he said.
Lightning? “Stay low, Red.” He laughed. I came up to Gramp’s knees.
Gramps predicted the weather based on the pain is his back or legs. Or if the horses in the field next door were anxious. Or whether the squirrels in his front yard were collecting snacks. Or if his pet dog was digging a hole in the yard.
If a storm caused outdoor damage? “It’s more about weak trees than strong winds,” he said.
I thought about Gramps last month after my cell phone’s warning alarm woke me after midnight. I got out of bed and turned on the TV to listen to the weather persons. That made me think about Gramps and his “flip a coin” theory.
I appreciated the phone emergency warning. I ended up in the basement, naturally. I put on sweatpants and a clean T-shirt. If a tornado hits, and I survived, well, I don’t want to be roaming the neighborhood in my underwear. I laid out my eyeglasses, car keys, wallet and medication under the bed, in case the ceiling dropped and I could find them in an emergency.
I could hear Gramps say, “Go to bed, Red. Tornado hits and nobody but you will care if you are in your underpants.”
I went back to bed but the phone alarm left a big twister in my head to ponder weather.
When did it get so weird?
I wish I could look at the weather in simple terms, like my Grandpa Bob.
If he were here today, I’d tell him all about global warming, radars, satellites, storm chasers, cell phone emergency alarms, and environmental concerns.
He’d tell me to turn off my cell phone, tablet, laptop, TV, radio and watch. He would ask me to grab the plastic tablecloth from the kitchen drawer. Take it out to the garden area in the side yard. Grab a few bricks, Red.
“Horses by the fence next door are anxious, fidgety,” he’d say. “Let’s cover the tomato plants. Big storm coming.”
