The Elkins Inter Mountain

CHASING AROUND

HARD UP

We arise here from our editorial chair to offer a few words in defense of a much cussed and discussed man. We are not getting paid for it, in fact we haven't even been asked to do it, but it is just our nature to help a person when he falls heir to an unnecessary amount of undeserved adverse criticism. The man we are getting at is "The Weather Man."

When anyone thinks of the weather, a common thought, they seem to hold the thought that the "Weather Man" is solely responsible. Do you believe explicitly in palmistry or phrenology or the many devious ways of forecasting the future? Many do. Exponents of these arts base their opinions on statistics or what you inadvertently tell them. The weather man bases his forecast on observations which he takes with instruments at hand and from what reports from other stations tell him.

Summer weather is a very uncertain quantity. Yesterday we had sunshine all morning and clear weather until about six o'clock. We had occasion yesterday afternoon to go to Philippi. The road was dry until about a mile this side of there. We continued on and went a few miles beyond Philippi. Between there and Grafton there had been almost a cloudburst. The fields and meadows were flooded. We saw several corn fields in about two feet of water. All the streams and rivulets were swollen to many times their normal size. Small creeks which seem to make a hobby of ruining level meadows in their meandering had made veritable lakes out of the lowlands. The whole reminded us of what a Holland landscape must look like.

How can the weather man say it won't rain here and it does and then you drive a few miles out of town and find the sun shining? Maybe it is clear in town and out at the Country Club the cow pasture addicts are getting a deserved wetting. Haven't you ever been driving and suddenly come to a place in the road where it is wet, as though the line had been made by hand? We have on a few occasions been going along on a dry road and all of a sudden run into a rain and after going a few miles just as abruptly come to another dry stretch.

How can you expect a mere man to forecast such conditions? Whenever his report says "probable showers," or "showers in the north east portion," wherever that is, he means to cover such conditions as we have mentioned.

Our sympathy is unreservedly with the "Weather Man" and we are prepared to accept whatever brand of weather he has in store for us and if occasionally he slips up we are not going to raise a howl. It is best to do as Major Ran Stalnaker does, always carry an umbrella, rain or shine. (But don't, on a sunshiny day ask the Major why he is carrying one, we know a lady who received a very sharp answer for doing so.)

So from now on get the habit of speaking pleasantly to our local weather man, Mr. Jones, even when it is raining. He, no doubt, has done his best and no doubt likes the weather to be "fair and warmer" as well as you do.

This will be about all for today.