Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

There is a nice day going on out there. It is a fitting end to my first week back at the office. The major problem for me will be that they are going to be expecting me to work until 6pm again on Fridays. I am not thrilled by that at all.

That was the biggest surprise when I first moved to Payson almost 10 years ago. I was in on Friday and then realized that they work until 6pm, and since I was a branch officer that meant I work until 6pm. Regardless, it is back to that routine again. I am not happy about that.

I have blessed with my own weather forecasting system. With my knew bionic knee I now have a bionic knee. With changes in pressure systems and storms approaching where I am at, I have leg pain that seems to be associated with the weather changes. Oh Joy, I have a weather knee. Well, that is not something I would get from this knee replacement but now I have that added blessing in my life.

Maybe it’s a just a sign that I am getting older, or maybe it’s something else, but I sure seem to be worried much more about the weather than I ever was before. I watch the weather forecasts with rapt attention, wondering what the next week or two will bring us. I think about how winter is on its way and how much I wish warmer weather would stay.

I look at the weather map and start to think to myself, I wish I had a home in St. George or Mesquite for the winter. I wish it weren’t so hot there right now and maybe I would go and stay the weekend. I find myself less tolerant of the extremes, the way hot days of summer or the way cold days of winter.

I love snow, but I don’t want 3 feet of snow on the ground. I just want a nice tolerable climate that allows me to enjoy the weather. Yeah, maybe it’s a sign that I am getting older.

I talked all spring about how cold and miserable it was. Now, it is noon and 103 outside. Of course, I am in Mesquite and it is supposed to be 110 before the day is over. Still, I am not going to complain. I have waited for summer, I have wanted the warmth, and I deserve the heat to be here. I am not going to complain because this is what I wanted, right? Well, sometimes you wonder about the extremes. Why can’t the weather be whatever you want for that particular day? Isn’t that what we all deserve? I think it is what the doctor has ordered. Ratchet it down a little OK.

Today it was actually warm, we actually worked in the yard. After such a long winter, you could see people out doing anything and everything. Walking the neighborhood, working the yard, mowing the lawn, riding bikes, going camping, all became a frantic activity.

No one wanted to let this day get by. We had to work at it like fiends. It was a great day.

This has been one of the longest winters I have ever experienced. Well, it could also be because I am getting older, but it seems like we just continue to have snowstorm after storm. We are in danger of flooding and I am concerned about that. We either have not enough water or way too much. Moderation, where art though?

We came up to Wyoming over the Martin Luther King Holiday weekend and it is comforting to know that some things never change. Wyoming is still as cold, windy, and winter like as it has ever been.

Likewise, the people here are as warm and friendly as they have ever been. Some things just never change.

Is Global Warming something we need to be worried about. I don’t know. I do know that I recently had the chance to see the Mendenhall Glacier which is just outside of Juneau, Alaska, in a little valley there. It was a very interesting experience. The Park rangers told us that the Glacier has been retreating at about 300 feet a year for the last few years, which was different from the 60 feet a year late last century.

The real key is, what is happening here. Are we in a warming age (which they said had been happening before the industrial age) or is this a more recent phenomenon? I don’t know the answer to that question. Debate rages on both sides of the question. I do know that it was neat to see something that I had never seen before in person. I think that is one thing that can help a person stay young, is doing new and different things.

This morning I went up on deck to find that it was raining quite hard. It was interesting to see that the horizon melted into gray and that the end of the ocean couldn’t be seen. It is a little disheartening to see rain on this trip, but then, this is the great Alaskan wildnerness we are going to see and rain may be part of it. I hope not, but we shall see.

Recently I was on the Sun Deck of the Crown Princess in the Caribbean Sea. It was so windy. The wind was whipping across the deck, hitting me in the face and blowing doors shut. All of a sudden I was comparing this desert called an ocean with the desert called Wyoming. Both are just so windy, in fact I would stay that the ocean, based upon the three trips that I have been on, are perhaps the most windy places I have ever seen before.

Why is that the case? I just realized that all of the geography lessons may actually mean something. I remembered that the “trade winds”, as these winds may be, or caused by the warming of huge masses of air. They are also caused by the rotation of the earth, and the blessing of these winds allowed our ancestors to cross the ocean when they didn’t have the blessing of a huge engine room that developed the power to drive the screws that drive the ship. It was a wonderful revelation. Yes, I have come to the conclusion that the plains of Wyoming are nice and wild and windy. Moreover, I love the wild windy ocean. I love the site of the waves breaking against the side of the ship. I love the dolphins jumping out of the water, and watching the ocean fish doing the same thing. I love the wild windy ocean.