Page 156 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

The fact that my father died when he was only 39 years old made it difficult for me to
picture myself living past that age, and being a Christian and learning about Jesus dying
at the age of 33 gave me doubts about my reaching old age. I always enjoyed having
long conversations with my elders, like my wife Virginia’s parents, Henry and Eunice
Carter, and my mother’s landlady, Louise Matthews. My relations with adults were
usually with authority figures – Boy Scout counselors, school teachers, and church
pastors. Many of my experiences in life were relegated to either books and
encyclopedias or the great outdoors. That’s where meteorology and gardening played a
large part in my life experiences.

I learned a lot about life from my wife, Virginia. She was an excellent homemaker, and
even though she was a bit of an introvert, she was a real people-person. I looked
forward to her opinion about things and often asked for her advice. We were both
perfectionists about many things and raising children was a challenge. Our boys were
both more athletic than me, participating in organized sports. I enjoyed observing
sports and joining the jogging/running craze of the 1980’s and 90’s, but I was also
wide-eyed about many things in the world around me. I was interested in so many
things that I found it hard to focus on one particular thing.

I was very philosophical about life, loving nature as expressed by poets like Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry David Thoreau, and Joyce Kilmer. I shared King
David’s awe of God’s creation as expressed in Psalm 19 with the “heavens declare the
glory of God”. Throughout my sixty years as a photographer and meteorologist, I
enjoyed capturing and sharing the magnificent beauty of weather and its effect on the
earth’s landscape. I shudder when I hear weather broadcasters refer to some weather as
being “nasty” or “bad”. I always reported the weather, not judge it. After all, “One
man’s junk is another man’s treasure”. Weather is merely the atmosphere’s response to
the balance, or imbalance, in the forces that have made life possible for humans over
thousands of years. Technologies have improved our quality of life, and
communication has made it possible for people to prepare and seek shelter from
weather extremes.

Journalist Tom Brokaw has said those of us who grew up in the Great Depression, won
World War II and rebuilt America, sent man to the moon were part of the greatest
generation. Truly we have been blessed in many ways. Now that we are being informed
24/7 with news reports, we see that there is a lot of good, yet so much evil in the world.
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