IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER (extra entry)

“...be instant in season, out of season;...” (from 2 Timothy 4:2)

You snow lovers are going to want to kill me, but I’m so excited after yesterday, that I just had to post this special piece!  Why am I excited?  I mowed my lawn yesterday!  Now, if I lived in Pensacola, Florida, I’m sure that mowing a lawn on December 12 would be no big deal.  For me, it was a very big deal.  My previous record for the latest in the season to mow the lawn was December 2, 2001, which also happened to have a record breaking temperature of 72 degrees.

Back in the pre-1997 days, I’d usually try to make the last day I cut the lawn on (or around) November 11.  Some years cold and snow would beat me to it, and my last mowing would be as early as October 14.  The year Mary Ann and I were newlyweds (1982) I remember a big Sunday snowstorm in early December.  For a minister, a Sunday snowstorm is a bummer.  I remember being up early shoveling and shoveling.  One of my first years in Framingham, there was a significant snowstorm on November 11.  One year in the early ‘90s (maybe 1992) there was a major blizzard on Thanksgiving Day.  I shoveled a lot and ate a lot of turkey.

I’m no leftist ecological nut.  Most of you know I’m a Republican and I lean to the right on many issues.  But global warming is real. Now, WHY it’s happening IS debatable.  Some scientists say Mars is warming at about the same rate as earth. If that is true, then the sun is throwing off a little more heat for some reason.  Our greenhouse gasses MAY only be responsible for about 4% of global warming, and the rest may just be nature.  I realize that in a long-term, ecological sense, global warming is probably bad.  But, as a guy who very much dislikes ice and snow, I’m really happy!

You may think I’m the type who likes the temperature to be 99 with blistering sunshine and high humidity.  I don’t.  Well, honestly, if I’m on vacation at Cape Cod and at the beach, then I DO like that kind of weather, but normally I don’t.  I don’t like extremes of weather.  That’s why my favorite seasons are spring and fall.  To me, an ideal day is sunny with a high of 68 and a low of 48.  (In my ideal world, about every 6th day would be a rainy one just to keep everything green and clean, but otherwise, I’d want sunny and in the 60s.)

Yesterday was not like December 12.   Temperature-wise, it was much more like you’d expect October 12 to be, and that’s fine with me.

When I was in Bible College in Springfield, Missouri in the late 1970s, yesterday’s Boston area weather was what the Missouri weather in late November and early December was like.  Ironically, they’ve already had at least one ice storm and at least one major snowstorm.  My understanding is that even THAT is a sign of global warming.

I know people want it to look Christmassy, and it really DOESN’T.  I know people want it to FEEL Christmassy, and it really DOESN’T.  But, as far as I’m concerned:  sunny and 48 degrees and mowing the lawn on December 12?  It doesn’t get much better than that!