Weather or Not

Remember the lady I told you about who grew up wealthy and miserable? She was a weather observer during WWII.

When I went to see her today, she told me that she had gotten 3.6 inches of rain at her house during the storm this week. She said she enjoyed yesterday, sitting and watching the rain.

I told her how Jack was a weather nut, too.

When we went to the family reunion in Ohio a couple years ago, we visited the National Museum of the Air Force. It was a wonderful museum, full of airplanes! Lots of 'em! One of the exhibits was outside. We nearly missed it, but I'm glad we didn't. It was a recreation of a US Army Air Corps 8th Air Force control tower and some Nissen huts, which was what Jack lived in while stationed in England. Inside the control tower was the weather room.

When I walked in to that weather room and saw all the maps and pages of hand-written weather data, with windows overlooking the tarmac, I instantly understood Jack's weather jones. So much of his personality was shaped by the war, and this is one aspect.

His life and the lives of the crew depended on the weather. It isn't surprising he carried this with him for the rest of his life.