Kinser: Don't like the weather? Wait 10 minutes
Charlotte Manns Kinser
No one seems happy with the weather this winter. Speak to anyone across the country and they will happily tell you in an instant. Gee, they will tell you even if you don't speak to them. Folks love to grumble about the weather.
Weather is an acceptable topic to speak about in public. It is one of the first topics children are taught to speak about in school. They take turns in nursery school describing the weather and predicting it.
Gentlemen used to strike up conversations with young ladies at bus stops or train stations in hopes of getting dates by discussing the weather. It often worked.
My mother pulled out a calendar she received from the hardware store that predicts snowfall and, by golly, it was right on target.
We laughed ourselves silly yesterday when she read it to me. Now we will wait and see if the last snowfall is when the calendar predicts. Maybe some of these young weather people should read the calendar as well as all the scientific gadgets.
When my mother gets a good snowfall, we never carry trash to the cans. We always load in on one of the children's sleds and pull it along and put it in the cans. It makes the chore much more fun that way.
We get all the extra rubbish out of the closets or cabinets and don't have the hassle of carrying it to the cans. The last time I did that for her a neighbor came along and said he never thought of it. I suppose he was happy to find a new use for his children's sleds. Now if he can only get one from them.
Fayetteville and Hope Mills usually only get black ice, and that is not fun at all. We only see the danger of winter. We occasionally get a rather large snow here. I recall going to the mountains one year in hopes of a white Christmas with my parents only to hear that it snowed in Fayetteville and not at my parents' home. I had my boys all prepared for building snowmen, and there was no snow to build them with.
On the plus side, children and teachers in our area don't often have to worry about making up snow days.
Both my sisters are teachers out of state and often have to go into the summer to make up snow days during really bad winter years. Their schools try to do more delay days if possible but if those roads don't cooperate the summers become shorter.
People dread our tornado and hurricane season, so I suppose it is a tradeoff. Folks get used to the weather wherever they are. I know I would hate to live in flood zone, but people who do just move the furniture and go back they tell me.
People adapt to conditions. That is what is special about us. We all make do with the weather and take it as it comes.
When I moved to North Carolina, a neighbor told me if I didn't like the weather to give it 10 minutes and it would change. I thought that was strange. About that time a summer shower came.
I used to run out to bring sheets off the clothesline and then run back out to hang them up. I soon learned to just leave them until evening and then see if I needed to put them in the dryer.
So if you are new to the area remember that 10-minute advice my neighbor gave me. It was rather good advice after all.
Don't forget Ruritan meetings on the second Monday each month at 7 p.m. on School Road in Gray's Creek.
Charlotte Manns Kinser lives in Gray's Creek and is active in the Ruritan Club.