Getting It Right?

Can't they ever get it right?  Can't they even come close?  Of course they do, sometimes.  But one would reasonably think, with all the high-tech equipment now available, the weathermen/ladies (Oops!  Should I have written "meteorologists?"  But that seems to give too much credit, too much of a scientific air, to them.) could be more accurate than they are.

Again, maybe I'm too harsh on them.  But today seemed all too frequent.  I woke a little after 5 AM, as usual, for my run, bike, and workout.  It was cloudy, very dark, and obviously had rained a bit overnight, but not much.  I checked two weather forecasts for this AM.  One read, "Expect rain and possible thunderstorms to move into your area by 8:30  AM."  OK, that gives me two or more hours.  The other indicated "0%" chance of rain for the next three hours, then "10%" for an hour, then back to "0%" until about noon.  "Good, I can at least get in my 7 or 8 miles, but the bike ride looks iffy," I thought to myself.

Off I went, but not far when a bit of a sprinkle (My late mother, whose birthday was Sunday, used to call light rain "sprinkles.") began.  That's fine.  I've been clammy for a few days and the mist felt pretty good.  A couple miles into my run, I saw lightning.  But it was off in the distance and I thought I had time to get back home before any real trouble.  So around I turned and headed back.  Wrong!

With about two miles to go, the rain picked up and came down in buckets.  The roads began to flood a bit and I sloshed around the rest of the way.  And, worse, the thunder and lightning began.  I run in just about anything--rain, hard and otherwise, cold as low as 10 or 12 below zero, snow--but I draw the line at thunder and lightning.  But here I was out in the middle of nowhere with no shelter around, other than trees.  Nope, don't take shelter under trees in a thunderstorm.  What options did I have?  I continued to run home, faster than usual, and figured I'd chalk it in my running log as "speed work."  Yep, I was worried, but what else could I do?  Hide under a tree?  Just stand there?  Walk?

I kept thinking to myself, "They did it again.  How can they be so wrong so often, esp with the high-cost technology they are always bragging about?"  OK, I know they get it right, sometimes.  One of my math buddies said his brother figured that if we merely predict tomorrow will be just like today, we'd be right about 80% of the time.  That seems far for accurate than what we get, but I might be wrong.  I don't know how meteorologists measure accuracy.  Does it count as being accurate when they say, "There's a chance of rain." or "It might right." or "There's a possibility of rain." or when they post "5% chance of precipitation?" Technically they are right, but that doesn't do us a whole lot of good.

Still, although I'll miss my bike ride (It's still raining with thunder dunders out there.), I did manage to get in a little more than five miles.  I did take the liner out of my running shoes and stuff them with newspapers to help them dry out.  And my tee shirt, shorts, and socks went immediately into the laundairy [sic].  And maybe I can then spend a few more minutes stretching and doing some core exercises (I don't know why, but I just don't like using that term, "core exercises."  But I do, both the exercises and use the term.)  Ashley likes to do "our exercises" with me, so that's a plus.

While I'm at it, I read a wonderful article in the Amherst Alumni Magazine last night.  It's not online yet, but I really enjoyed it.  Written by one of my professors, William Pritchard, it was titled "Life After Amherst," a really appropriate title.  Professor Pritchard was an Amherst student in the '50s and after graduation stayed to teach, where he still has emeritus status, teaching one course a term.  He's been there, in what I consider "Heaven on Earth," for about 60 years!  Yet, "Life After Amherst......"  That's what his life has been.  Although a philosophy major, he taught English when I was there.  This essay demonstrates what a great teacher he was and still is.  In it he addresses, "the secret horror of the last," that is wondering what comes next, after life.  He takes that quotation, fittingly, from Samuel Johnson, "The secret horror of the last is inseparable from a thinking being whose life is limited and to whom death is dreadful."  (It calls to mind another great piece of writing, a book, by former Amherst president Peter Pouncy, Rules for Old Men Dying, just a brilliant book that I've read a couple of times.)  That's what Professor Pritchard did in class, read aloud to students from a novel or a poem to teach them to become "ear readers."

Some of what Professor Pritchard writes seems curmudgeonly (a term Karen often uses to refer to me, which I will now wear proudly!), esp about technology and its deleterious effects on personal relationships and interaction.  He still hand writes his grades and walks them over to the registrar, something almost all other professors now do by computer.  The workers at the registrar's office are appreciative  "We miss seeing people," one said to him.  Fellow Amherst professors, he laments, are no longer in the library "browsing for books."  He doesn't accuse them of slacking or being lazy, oh no.  He notes that they are at home or in their offices using the computer to do what used to be done (or still is, by him) in the library.  But, they aren't "seeing people."  He laments, "The digital world has triumphed."  Gee, I wonder if that's where I got it??????

But, in the end, it's a fun, insightful article.  And, despite what impression I may have given above, it's quite uplifting.  We were lucky indeed to have teachers like Professor Pritchard.