Bradley Beam

Why Worry About the Weather
Says Weatherman--Read Almanac
By LT. JARVIS ALGER

The other day while browsing around the Library, I unwittingly got hold of a back copy of a neat little package put out by a fellow called Robert B. Thomas. Of course, if you've never heard of R. B. Thomas it might be wise for me to mention the name of this particular edition which was the 1945 number of the Old Farmer's Almanac.

"Mmm;" I says to myself knowingly, "maybe this guy R. B. has got something here" (noticing way up at the top of the front page in huge boldface type the words "153rd Continuous Year of Publication"), either that or he has been fooling a large number of old farmers a large part of the time. (Quotes are Abe- Old Farmer- Lincoln's).

Stumbling over a large metal ash stand and bruising four small librarians in the resulting scramble, I fell face downward into an over-stuffed hardwood chair, automatically focusing on page 21 of the OFA. Expecting some miraculous sort of revelations to be made known to me, I was caught quite off-balance by this statement (as undoubtedly you will be, too) "April hath 30 days!" Conjuring back in my memory for the old rhyme about 30 days hath September, etc., etc., I found myself unconsciously checking up on old R. B. before I had even got into the real meat of the page. The above statement is undoubtedly included for the benefit of those of us who just can't recall that little verse when the need arises, but all the old farmers I ever talked with seem to have all those rhymes at the tip of the tongue anyway, so should need no help in remembering which month has thirty days and which has thirty-one. On the other hand, garage mechanics could probably use this little tid-bit of information, since I have never met a garage mechanic who knew the day of the week, let alone recite poetry. Garage mechanics always have a profusion of pretty girl calendars plastered to the four walls of their shops, so why should they memorize rhymes, or read the Old Farmer's Almanac, for that matter?

But that is neither here nor there. What I really wanted to find out in reading the Almanac was this: Can this guy Thomas really tell what kind of weather the Old Farmers are going to get a year ahead, or, just who is he trying to kid?

The latter question may be answered most simply. Cagey old R. B. Thomas has been kidding the Old Farmers now, for a period of a 153 consecutive years, and Lord knows how many others, like myself, who don't cultivate the soil.

When I think of the consequences of 153 years of reading the Almanac's weather prognostications blindly, with no further insight of the weather than Daniel Beard's moistened forefinger held aloft to the breezes, my Central Technical Training Command (Chanute Field) trained mind fairly cringes with thoughts most awful to describe. Only those of us who have undergone the rigorous rigamarole forced upon us (in most cases) by the greatest minds in the field of Meteorology, can realize the dire results to be obtained by 153 years of uninterrupted study of the Old Farmer's Almanac. To think of the possibilities of irreparably warping one's mind in this manner, makes me fairly rejoice in the fact that I was fortunate enough to be chosen to become a Weather Forecaster.

Without those long months of training behind me, I would still be stumbling blindly through life with a copy of the O.F.A. tucked securely in my breast pocket, and with no other thought in mind than the question "Would old cracker-jack Thomas hit today's forecast on the nose?" Hit it? By cracky, he never misses!