TEXAS WEATHER

The scorching Texas sun has finally set.  The ceiling fan in the kitchen squeals and whines in a futile attempt to cool.  The screen door to the back porch creaks and groans as the old dog wanders in and, tongue hanging out, flops on the floor under the table. No one moves, only the sound of the ceiling fan and the windmill in the yard, barely turning in the hot evening air, breaks the silence.

Fast forward sixty years…same hot Texas sun but ceiling fans purr quietly as they circulate the cool air conditioned air around the room, but the discussion on weather goes on, from the morning coffee down at the local café in Onalasaka (yes there is an Onalalaka)  to the concrete corridors of Houston.

Much is written about the weather…

 “Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”  Mark Twain

 On February 9, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a joint resolution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to establish a national weather service. The resolution required the Secretary of War... “To provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent and at other points in the States and Territories”.

So the records are still being made and broken, season come and go…and the weather cycle goes on.

Though the air conditioning makes life more comfortable I can still hear the opening and closing of a screen door, the creaking and groaning of a windmill…life move on.