Whittling Away with Dick Brooks - Weather or Not

I've had a great many different jobs in my long and illustrious career. Most of them I've enjoyed. I've been a professional chicken plucker, an aluminum foundry worker, a strawberry picker, cook on a sailing vessel, house painter, canoeing instructor, cartoonist, race car tire changer and others too numerous to mention. There are still lots of other occupations out there that I'd like to try given the chance.

I'd like to try being a weatherman. What other job offers the opportunity to be wrong 95% of the time with no repercussions? I'm not sure what kind of training is required but it has to involve a lot of sensory deprivation. Weathermen and women need the ability to focus totally on their predictions, the fact that what is going on outside the window is totally the opposite of what they're predicting can have no effect on their forecast. They must take a class in vague descriptive language--you know, things like "partly cloudy, possibility of precipitation, likely snow accumulation", if you'd like to add to the list, watch any weather forecast on any TV channel you'd like. I'd like to find a decisive weather person, one with the courage to be specific, I want to hear a forecast that says, "At three fifteen today, it will start to pour and will rain for 48 minutes yielding 3/16 th of an inch of rain, this will be followed by 53 minutes of filtered sunlight". Why can't we expect this of our weather persons? We wouldn't want our doctor to tell us that the medicine he was prescribing would be likely to possibly, partly, help cure us. We wouldn't accept an architect who told us that the height of the building we had commissioned would vary from 45 to 55 feet depending on the amount of sunshine during the day. Yup, it'd be fun to be a weatherman, I have practiced. I came up with the following forecast for tomorrow--Sunny, unless there are clouds, it'll be warm, unless it snows, chance of showers unless it's dry. I'd be a great weatherman, I just need to learn a little more. I'm not quite sure what causes wind but I do think its the trees waving around that causes it.

If I can't be a weatherman, I think I'd like to be a taste tester at the Godiva Chocolate factory or maybe the tester at the Sealy Mattress factory or at the Lazy Boy plant, think of it, getting paid to nap! Of course, I'd never be able to sleep at night if I took a professional napper job, if I went to work for Godiva, I'd soon weigh more than Ethopia and being a weatherman would probably mean having the dogs set on me wherever I went. On second thought, I think I'll just continue doing what I'm doing.

Thought for the week--"Sure, everyone always said, 'Socrates, what is the meaning of life?' or 'Socrates, how can I find happiness? Did anyone say, "Socrates, Hemlock is poison!

Until next week, may you and yours be happy and well.

whittle12124@yahoo.com