Stormy Weather

This column originally appeared on Sunday, June 15, 2008

Our friend Judy was happy. Judy was ecstatic. If Judy was a movie, she'd have been “Happy Gilmore.” If she was a song, she'd have been “Don't Worry, Be Happy.” If she was a member of the “Black Sox” baseball team that threw the 1919 World Series, she'd have been Oscar “Happy” Felsch (1891-1964; OF. 38 HR, 446 RBI, .293 BA, lifetime).

And all because she got to sit through a thunderstorm on Tuesday evening.

Judy, Judy, Judy.

Judy was visiting from her home in Vermont (Motto: “Freedom, Unity and 101 Inches of Annual Snowfall”) and stayed long enough to hear the first rumblings of the storm as it made its way across West Vincent's tweed, cheese and horse-dung country. She reacted to the noise as if Christmas had come early and she was 8 years old again. She reacted as if Thor, the god of thunder, had been her favorite Marvel Comic Books character and the Norse Super Hero was making a personal visit after all these years.

“We just don't get storms like these in Vermont,” she explained, as the rest of us sat around the kitchen table and wondered if the storms in Vermont are accompanied by the sounds of kittens purring and babies cooing in their cribs. Whaddaya mean? Have they moved the Maple Syrup State into a new meteorological region that eschews liquid precipitation mixed with static electricity? Does the lack of a storm-themed Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream flavor mean the climate in Vermont up and dumps the whole concept? (Note to Ben: Suggested flavor: “Chocolate Thunder Thighs.” Check with Darryl Dawkins for promotional tie-in.)

“Oooooh, the tops of the trees look like they're fighting one another!” Judy exclaimed to the actual chronological children in the room, Trevor and Emma, standing next to her quivering like wet dogs in the cold. “Isn't it breathtaking!” she squealed.

Yes, we thought quietly to ourselves, breathtaking in the sense that in a couple of minutes the air conditioning is going to go dead and we are going to be inhaling stale, moisture-laden air that reminds us of the last time we took a steam at the Y.

Sure enough, within moments of her declaration that the lightning bolts on the horizon suggested the ultimate majesty of Nature harnessed by man for civilization's progress that would ultimately result in free health care for all, the power went out. We guessed that the folks in Vermont who don't get to see these kind of summer storms also don't get to stare at a light bulb that went out 20 minutes ago waiting for it to come back on, only to be teased by a momentary flicker and then 48 straight hours of no TV.

We left Judy with a big hug and a loving wish to come back sometime when we can show her how emotionally fulfilling freezing rain can be, and headed home. We wanted to make certain that our neighbors on South Church Street all had plenty of power to keep them cool and crisp and television-enabled. We wished that for them because our recent spiritual enlightenment had taught us to pray for others' happiness and not our own.

We were rewarded richly for our entreaties, because the folks across the street from us had their living rooms lit up like Times Square on New Years Eve, whilst our quarters were as dark as a Norse cave. On South Church Street, you remember, the folks across the street always have power.

As Tuesday faded, we sat outside on the porch before going into the microwave oven that we once knew as our bedroom, watching as the neighbors happily turned their light switches on and off regularly, just for the visceral pleasure of having the light bulbs respond.

The flashes typed out a Morse Code message. It read, “Happy, Judy?”