Weather Talk

Oscar Wilde wrote, “Please don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing.  Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.”  There is no need for you to feel nervous if you are reading this blog today.  I do, indeed, intend to write about the weather and only the weather without any intent to say something else.

Yesterday here in Maine the temperature rose to 86 degrees with a bright sunny sky.  As we walked along the sands of  Old Orchard Beach there were many people enjoying their last fling in the “still-warm” waters of the Atlantic.  It was an unbelievable kind of October day, as was the day before (Tuesday) when the temperature reached 81 degrees.  It felt as if the humidity was just as high as the temperature—like in the dog days of August.  But it wasn’t August—it is October!  Mark Twain said it well, “If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.”

Meanwhile, some 1500 miles away, Hurricane Michael was roaring in off the gulf and devastating the Florida panhandle. Yesterday, in Fargo, North Dakota,  the temperature was in the 30’s with snow showers and the same is anticipated for today.

This morning when I awoke here in Maine the temperature was 50 degrees—a 36 degree drop from just yesterday.  Brrrr.  Yesterday we had the air-conditioner running in Odysseus (miniature RV) and this morning I had to turn on the heater!  The sky is overcast and a chilly rain is falling.  It reminds me of the lyrics of a song sung by Dinah Washington some years back, “What a difference a day made—24 little hours.”  The difference was 36 degrees!!  That difference changes things. Marcel Proust wrote, “A change in weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.”  

We cannot, however, say today, “The sun did not shine. It was too wet too play.  So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold day.” (Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat)  No, we must be on our way.  Our stay in Maine is over.  But our hope and prayer is that our weather and  your weather, wherever you may be today, will be sufficient to start a conversation that might have the potential to recreate the world and ourselves.