When I was a small boy growing up in good ole Havana Junction, I already knew what I wanted to be in life. I wanted to be a weatherman, a newspaper reporter, a radio announcer and a photographer. Amazingly, as my career evolved, I got to do all of those things. Actually the “newspaper” part was writing literally thousands of weather stories, statements and warnings while in the National Weather Service and writing such as this today.
My mom bought me a 25-cent thermometer at Woolworth in Tuscaloosa, a 3-cent pencil and a 5-cent composition book. That was all I needed to start keeping weather records. Later I ordered a $4.00 plastic rain gauge through a mail order catalog. By then I was in hog heaven.
I was also lucky to have a science teacher at Martin-Stewart Elementary School and Akron High School that was also interested in weather and he encouraged me greatly. His name was Watson Duncan. Once a week he would throw out the science lesson and have a current events class. My assignment was to report on the weather each week.
I would get up very early, feed the chickens and my pet pig, milk the cow and try to gather enough weather information to draw a crude weather map before I went to school. The way I had to get information is a million light years (backwards) from today.
I would turn on our old battery radio and pick up WWL in New Orleans at 5:00 a.m., jot down their current conditions and then I would tune that old radio around the country picking up such stations as WHO Des Moines, KOMA Oklahoma City, WBAP Fort Worth, KOA Denver, WHAS Lousiville, WBT Charlotte, WBBM, WGN, and WMAQ in Chicago, WOR New York and finally WHAM in Rochester, New York. WHAM had a morning program called The New York Agricultural Radio Network. They would switch around the state of New York giving local conditions and end up with a direct broadcast from the Buffalo Weather Bureau.
If you think I was aweather "geek" way back when, I wasn’t the only one. Did you know that President Harry S. Truman expected a freshly-drawn weather map on his desk in the oval office when he arrived each morning? They were "hand-drawn" maps in those days. No computers to do the work for you. That's what I call good company!
My mom bought me a 25-cent thermometer at Woolworth in Tuscaloosa, a 3-cent pencil and a 5-cent composition book. That was all I needed to start keeping weather records. Later I ordered a $4.00 plastic rain gauge through a mail order catalog. By then I was in hog heaven.
I was also lucky to have a science teacher at Martin-Stewart Elementary School and Akron High School that was also interested in weather and he encouraged me greatly. His name was Watson Duncan. Once a week he would throw out the science lesson and have a current events class. My assignment was to report on the weather each week.
I would get up very early, feed the chickens and my pet pig, milk the cow and try to gather enough weather information to draw a crude weather map before I went to school. The way I had to get information is a million light years (backwards) from today.
I would turn on our old battery radio and pick up WWL in New Orleans at 5:00 a.m., jot down their current conditions and then I would tune that old radio around the country picking up such stations as WHO Des Moines, KOMA Oklahoma City, WBAP Fort Worth, KOA Denver, WHAS Lousiville, WBT Charlotte, WBBM, WGN, and WMAQ in Chicago, WOR New York and finally WHAM in Rochester, New York. WHAM had a morning program called The New York Agricultural Radio Network. They would switch around the state of New York giving local conditions and end up with a direct broadcast from the Buffalo Weather Bureau.
If you think I was aweather "geek" way back when, I wasn’t the only one. Did you know that President Harry S. Truman expected a freshly-drawn weather map on his desk in the oval office when he arrived each morning? They were "hand-drawn" maps in those days. No computers to do the work for you. That's what I call good company!
on February 9, 2005, 7:19 am
Stephanie
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