Posted on by Phil Strawn

The Weather And Old People


I don’t know what it is about us as we age, but the weather fascinates us.

Momo and I watch the weather every night. Even if it’s raining, we want to know if there will be more rain or when summer will actually start frying our brains when we go outside. It’s been raining here almost every day for almost three weeks, and more is coming, so I guess the El Niño thing really works.

Momo did her Girl Scout Indian Rain dance in April, and I’m sure that set it all in motion. I’m talking big rain, 2-3 inches at a time, flooding, winds, tornadoes, hail, water rescues, the whole enchilada with extra sauce. She worries that I watch too much news, but it’s crap; I watch only for the weather forecast. I told her it’s better than sitting by the window watching for the mailman to deliver our junk mail. My late, late grandmother did that for twenty years, and then one day she won some stupid prize and got a big check, so I guess it was worth two decades of watching the mailbox.

We spend most evenings, after Wheel of Fortune, on our covered back patio, safe from the rain and hail, sipping a libation. Lately, our resident Road Runner has been in the backyard more than usual, looking for frogs and lizards. He came up behind my chair and probably would have jumped on my shoulder if Momo hadn’t moved. They are large, curious birds that kill Rattle and Copperhead snakes to feed their young, or just for fun, so it’s a bird you don’t want to piss off. The Indians in the area say that if one lives on one’s property, one will always be snake-free and have good luck, so play the lottery, which Momo does. I guess that’s why Dodge named their most popular muscle car back in the ’60s’, The Roadrunner, with a 440 Hemi.

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30 Replies to “The Weather And Old People”

  1. I’m glad to read you’re chillin’ on your patio with your pet feral roadrunner and drinking dancing juice while the rain pounds the hard Texas earth. But I can’t imagine Momo hopping around doing that Girl Scout Indian rain dance-not with her knee replacement/s. 🙂

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    1. Nancy, it’s a slow dance and mostly words of gibberish spoken to the sky, but it worked. Her knee is good now so she can still jump around a bit. The bird and I are getting along quite well. I saw him again this morning, looking for breakfast for his family that has the nest the size of a tiny home in a tree next door.

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  2. (1) I asked Mother Nature for the whole enchilada here in Southern Nevada. Her response? “No comprendo.”
    (2) In French, based on the cartoon, the Roadrunner is called Bip Bip (pronounced like Beep Beep). The first time my second wife from France saw a roadrunner, she was confused. “Looks nothing like the cartoon!” Of course, Wile E. Coyote doesn’t look much like a real coyote either. Cartoonists are merely inspired by nature; they don’t imitate it. Over the years, we saw numerous roadrunners in the Mojave Desert. We saw numerous coyotes, too. We even saw a roadrunner and a coyote a couple of minutes apart, but I don’t think they saw each other.

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    1. We have Coyotes here in our neighborhood, but I haven’t seen one in a while, only hear them yip at night. The bird wants to be pals, I can feel the vibes. I haven’t seen a snake in a while, so he is doing his job well. Gotta come to Texas for that special Enchilada sauce, it’ll light you up.

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  3. Cool to have a roadrunner cruising your back yard. Hmmm. Was the Roadrunner really Dodge’s most popular muscle car?? Or was that slightly tongue in cheek. I mean,,, let’s not forget the Dart! and, oh, the Horizon!

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  4. I’ve looked up pictures of road runners to see if they looked like the WB’s version. Amazing birds! I had no clue they ate snakes, and I hope they can catch rats, too.

    The weather here can’t decide if it’s May or late September. We’ve had rain, but nothing like the amount you just described. Everything is at least three times more intense in Texas?

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    1. Texas has two uses for its inhabitants: when its nice and green and not too hot, its a preview of Heaven, in July, well its a preview of the other place. It keeps us in line and civil to each other. The real birds look different and are larger than expected. They are curious and sort of friendly, so he and I may wind up pals.

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  5. My wife and I used to dial into the Weather Channel every day.  Not for the weather, of course.  Not even for the junk science of global warming.  We suffered from television-advertisement withdrawal syndrome.  There was never any shortage of TV ads on that channel, and we were well sated.

    We finally broke that habit by enrolling in an online intervention program offered by Weather Channel Addiction Anonymous, Inc., LLC.  We paid a dollar down and a dollar a week.  After 4 years of therapy, we, like Martin Luther King, Jr., are free at last.  No more political-correctness bull tacos about rising sea levels that no one along the East Coast of the United States has ever experienced.  No more encouragement to ask our doctor about modern medications guaranteed to give us the runs, the hiccups, or both at once.

    I wish we had roadrunners here, but it’s too humid for even them.  Thus, Wylie Coyote is safe here in the Panhandle.  Plus, we appreciate our snakes, especially the black ones that eat the venomous variety. 

    So far, a lottery win eludes us.  Do you think it’s against state law to buy Texas roadrunners and ship them to our fair state, if we also purchase a dozen cherry bombs?

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    1. I know they prefer Rattlers and Copperheads and a few frogs for dessert. Watching the news nowadays is akin to one long pharma commercial, so we use the mute a lot. I never realized I was that damn sick and needed all of these medications. I can send Cherry Bombs, but will likely fail at capturing a Road Runner, they are fast and can fly.

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  6. Beep-beep! (Couldn’t resist, Phil 😉) These stories about your life and where you live are both interesting and entertaining. You have great writing skills.

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  7. I think her dance worked and sent the rain here. Memorial Day weekend until Wednesday was one big rainfest.
    One of my early memories is Dad going to a car lot and he looked at one of those Roadrunners…I remember seeing the symbol on the car…he almost bought it…made me love those cars.

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    1. One of my good friends had one, it was a beast and left my Chevelle in his rear view mirror every time. We had another round of storms yesterday afternoon, but are dry until Monday. It’s the Aliens doing this.

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      1. Oh I would love to have one now! I love those cars from that era. Most of those muscle cars will not hang a curve…but that is alright. They are works of art…some of them.
        Must be Aliens!

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      4. Momo’s dad drove a 65 Pontiac GTO with two four barrels, 389 and floor shift, she shutdown everyone when she took that beast out to the deserted strip where we all raced each other. She drove a 65 Mustang as her own car. I had a poor little 327 in my Malibu, so I was on the bottom rung of the muscle cars my buddies drove. Ken, one of my friends had a Dodge Dart with a huge engine, four speed and that thing was uncontrollable. Driggers drove a 289 Mustang GT and Jarry had a Camaro with a 327.

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      5. Well THAT had to make her even more attractive to you! Mustang gets a thumbs up!
        All of those cars Phil…I can’t guess how much money you all had in your hands in the future!

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      6. Didn’t think about how much they would be worth back then. Cars were not that expensive. I wish I had my Chevy now, and Momo misses her Mustang. I now drive a Honda Ridgeline pick up, about the right speed for me.

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      7. I’m going back to the old stuff. Our Jeep is a 2000…one computer on that…and I’m putting a diesel motor in my 1985 Chevy S-10…I just refuse to pay that much for a car anymore….plus I want no computers and I want it simple.

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      9. Yes…my buddy is a great mechanic on the old stuff. His dad was a truck driver and he is a truck driver…he is helping me…well since I don’t know much about it…he is basically doing it.

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      10. My son and I back in the late 90s restored a 1964 1/2 fastback Mustang. We worked on it together and it was his first car. 289 floor shift painted Bullitt Green like McQueens Mustang in the movie.

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  9. my father’s parents bought a 5 acre homestead in the late ’50s in the Cahuilla Hills area above Palm Desert here in Southern California. I used to love to sit on the porch at night, watch the stars, watch the lights on the cars coming down Highway 74 from Idylwild. If you ever sat through It’s A Mad Mad World they used that stretch of curves and turns, you could see a momentary glimpse of the house in it.

    I love that. I thank you for reminding me, between the rain storms and the road runner, just how I loved that.

    No, not the response one would expect from your blog, but one truly from my heart.

    THANKS

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    1. Thank you, yes, it is a heartfelt reply. As we age, moments from our childhood sneak up on us. I imagine back then that part of the desert was full of stars and other wonderous things. I do love that movie, one of my favorites, especially Dick Shawn. I watch it again to see the house. Back in the 60s, before Port Aransas turned from a fishing and surfing village to Myrtle Beach, I would drive my old Korean war issue jeep down to the beach at night and it was so dark I could see the milky way and every star in the sky out over the Gulf. Things may be long gone, and the world is different now, but we still have those snapshots and memories locked in. Thanks for a great reply, Aurther.

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