Weather watcher? Not me
I am a born and bred Kansan. My mother gave birth to me in a town about 20 miles north of the Oklahoma border, and I spent the majority of my formative years in a town that's smack-dab in the center of the I-70/I-135 intersection.
I love the prairie, and I don't like tall buildings in big cities because they don't let you see the sky.
But lately, I've realized that one characteristic separates me from most residents of the Sunflower State.
I don't care about the weather.
To the outsider, weather isn't such a big deal. It happens. But in Kansas, following the weather borders on passion.
Is snow on the way? Abnormally warm temperatures predicted to hit town on Saturday? Rest assured, it'll be the No. 1 topic of conversation. It'll be the first item discussed on the nightly news.
And if it's a really big storm, it'll be trumpeted continually on the local networks, complete with some catchy title, something like "Super Doppler Mega Storm Busters Team Watch 2003."
But you know what? I don't pay attention.
First off, I don't watch the nightly TV news, so it's news to me if a storm is on the way. This makes me somewhat of a black sheep in the family, where everyone always watches Channel 12. Good ol' Merrill Teller — he's the one we always turn to.
Not that I don't like Merrill. But my reasoning is simple: If it snows, I'll wear a coat and scrape my windshield. If it's warm, I won't. If it's slightly cool, I'll wear a jacket. If it rains, I'll put the jacket's hood over my head.
Knowing that the weather is on its way doesn't change my response to it.
I'm not the only one who feels this way. Back at my former newspaper, we were considering a redesigned weather forecast area. It was a half-page that ran on the inside of the front page every day.
Our weather forecast needed a catchy title, maybe something like "Weather for your day," "News you can use," or "Storm Tracker Weather Watcher Extravaganza."
At a standstill, a few of the editors came up with a journalist's solution: Call it the "Look out your own darn window" weather.
Makes sense to me.
I know, I know, it's completely different for the farmers. Your livelihood is outdoors, and the weather affects that.
But for me, who lives indoors, works indoors, and drives everywhere, weather just doesn't concern me.
Except for the constant scraping of the windshield every morning — I get really sick of doing that.
— JENNIFER WILSON
