Blog 803 – 10.23.2017

Ideal Weather, A Matter Of Taste

The line goes, “Everyone, talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” What indeed can be done, I mean, besides merely accepting what comes and making the best of it? We all have our own particular taste in weather. I have noticed in what this southern born and bred boy calls “Yankee land” (anything north of the Mason Dixon line for the uninitiated or not indoctrinated, a demarcation line between the four states of Maryland and Delaware and between West Virginia and Pennsylvania), that many of the residents of these parts complain about the snow and cold weather. I was, I am sure, guilty of complaining about the heat and humidity during my over thirty five years in Houston, Texas. My mother did not like the long winters of her beloved Chattanooga and as a boy who dearly loved his mother and always will, many of my own opinions have been by hers informed. For some years now traveling in the north country as far north as Aberdeen, Scotland and Tok, Alaska I have come to prefer the cooler climes and consider my ideal climate to be where winter is the longer of the four seasons, summer being the briefest if at all. I loved Alaska and Scotland in summer for it was still what I call “jacket weather” and even in the heat of the day barely sixty degrees Fahrenheit or 15.6 Celsius. As a boy I thought fifteen would be the perfect age to be and now that fifteen degrees Celsius is about the perfect outside temperature, no need for A/C if it gets stuffy just open a window.

And I realize many of you may differ with me on what I might consider ideal weather. We may have differences of opinion about Presidents, politics, professional sports teams, and the practice of religion but that is as it should be. How boring, a world where everybody preferred blondes or the same food, drink, or dress. Now that would truly be a mess, not to mention the fact that so many of us would feel completely left out because we did not embody “the ideal.” Ideal is really a funny notion if you think of it, even the term “taste.” People talk of something being in “good taste” or “bad taste” when they really mean “my taste” or “our taste.”

I pick on Christians a lot, perhaps because I was one for so many years and understand their particular hypocrisies best. One of their most revered and often quoted writers in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, wrote, “There is nothing good or bad in itself but only as we think it so.” He went on to write that to do or say something we think is bad is a sin against ourselves and we should try to live our truth with a clear conscious. It is okay to prefer one President, team, or temperature above the others but cut the rest of us and yourself some slack. And try to make the best of what comes to you. Even for me a cold and blustery winter is even finer after a particularly hot summer. And even a mediocre President might really shine after a lack luster or particularly inept one. We can only hope – keep hope alive and enjoy the weather. Baby, it’s cold outside.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White