Now Who Needs A Weatherman To Tell Which Way The Wind Blows?

Now Who Needs A Weatherman To Tell Which Way The Wind Blows?

It was Bpb Dylan who penned the lyric about the wind's direction. It's from his Subterranean Homesick Blues, a hit in 1965.  It became an iconic work.  In rock journalist Andy Gill's words, "a verbal whirlwind...recognized by an entire generation."  It was densely packed with allusions to all sorts of emerging themes in the 1960's youth culture, everything from the civil rights movement, to the protest movement, and the widespread use of illicit drugs.  It wasn't a narrative, but a collection of emergent ideas.  It's a fact that the radical splinter from the Students for a Democratic Society, the Weathermen, took its name from the line quoted in this piece's title.

The title of the song probably came from Jack Kerouac's work on the Beat Generation entitled The Subterraneans.  In 1959, while at the University of Minnesota, Dylan came under the influence of the Beat Generation's icons, Ginsberg, Corso and Kerouac.  Some 14 years later, I discovered Kerouac and enjoyed reading that and other works by Kerouac.  I never became a big fan of Ginsberg or Corso, but I am sure I read three or four books by Kerouac.  All of which has nothing to do with the real topic of this little note.  Previously, I have soaked about the total lack of accountability that surrounds weather prognostication.  These people mostly read and summarize the works of others, but what they read off the teleprompter is rarely, it ever, reviewed for accuracy.  I am sure the average weatherperson never includes any accuracy statistics in his or her resume.

Now Who Needs A Weatherman To Tell Which Way The Wind Blows?

We bring this on ourselves, you know.  I have no doubt that people in general pay no more attention than to note "the weatherman was way off today, wasn't he?" and that is about all.  No one goes around saying "Wow, that's three times in a row the weatherman hit the nail on the head with that temperature forecast.  "  Or, says this is the second time this week the weatherman was right about the rain."  No one needs a weatherman to tell them which way the wind blew yesterday for just one reason--NO ONE CARES WHAT THE WEATHER WAS YESTERDAY!  They want to know what the likelihood of rain is this evening or tomorrow morning, but not yesterday.  The fact that the fireworks display was rained out, or the picnic was shortened unexpectedly by a downpour soon fades from memory.

Today was a remarkable day, weather-wise.  Even in July in South Carolina, the temperature did not reach 88 degrees.  The humidity was noticeably absent, there was a cool breeze and the evening was just the same--delightful.   Since we had two sets of friends vacationing here this week, we were glad to see it happen for their last day at the beach (or the pool, or wherever).  It made me think about what the week had been like overall, AND I COULD NOT REMEMBER!  We had showers in the early part of the day a couple of times, I think, and showers late in an otherwise perfect day once, I think, and yesterday we had rain in the middle of the day that promptly disappeared, leaving a nice afternoon and evening.  Or, wasn't that Thursday?  And which days had no rain at all?  Is this just my age?  I dunno, but, as I noted above, we are conditioned not to care or keep track.  So, I am going to start summarizing the weather we have each day in my handy little calendar, as soon as I find it, I think it's downstairs.  I need to write down what a gorgeous day today has been, before I forget which day it was (is).  Hope your day was spellbinding, too.