OPINION: Potpourri: Do outdoor events attract bad weather?
Apr. 25—Ah spring! My second most favorite season after fall.
Spring is the time for many celebrations: Most notably things like proms, graduations, weddings and end-of-the school year outdoor sporting events — track and field, baseball/softball, tennis, golf and whatever else I might have missed.
Spring is also one of the main times for severe storms, and if you have the luck I used to have all the time, it was a given that the weather would decide to act up on the day I desperately wanted it to be nice.
You ever notice how the first track meet of the year is basically guaranteed to fall on a day when the weather is either frigid and drizzling a mixture of rain and snow or the wind is blowing a sustained hurricane gale?
What is so frustrating about it is the previous day the weather was sunny and pleasant with bluebirds, cardinals, butterflies, Bambi, young parents and toddlers frolicking in the blissful warmth!
The weather also likes to play a supporting (or non-supporting) role throughout the end of year sports season.
For example, back in 2015, it poured and poured during the state tennis tournament, causing some matches to be rescheduled and moved to Sunday. That resulted in a couple Abilene High School seniors having to decide whether to continue on their path to the championship or miss graduation. Admirably, the young men decided to stay and compete, but as the mother of a senior who was graduating that same year, my heart was breaking for the athletes and their families.
Prom Saturday is another day when Mother Nature tends to show the bi-polar side of her personality.
Unfortunately or fortunately, I don't remember much about my junior and senior year proms. The only reason I remember them at all is because my Dad took a photo of me and my friends, Vicki and Angela, in our prom finery. My Mom made me a beautiful empire-style dress with dainty flowers on a white background. If I had flowers in my hair I could have passed for a 1970s bride. But I digress.
With the memory conjured by the photo, I remember it rained on and off that Saturday. When it cleared up early in the afternoon, I took the car I was driving to the car wash, only for the clean to be washed away a couple hours later.
While my prom experience with Mother Nature was minor, she has been known to put on some spectacular performances.
I'll never forget one particular prom photo that appeared in the Solomon newspaper back in 2012 of students heading to the Solomon High School prom, wearing their gowns and tuxes, standing outside with a tornado passing by in the background!
I wish I had cut that photo out of the paper.
Graduations are another occasion where the weather often demands to be included. Back in the dark ages when I graduated from AHS, commencement was held at the football field in the early evening. For some unusual reason, the weather was very nice during my graduation with the only fly in the ointment being my near trip as my platform shoe got caught on something in the grass.
College graduation a few years later from Emporia State was a whole other matter. The weather that Friday morning was sunny and warm during commencement practice at Welch Stadium; but as late afternoon approached storms rolled in and Emporia was in a tornado warning. I've written before about my parents and friend driving through the foul weather from Council Grove, so I won't go into that again. But luckily, the weather calmed down and graduation was held inside at White Auditorium without incident.
Anyhow, severe weather is in the forecast for the next few days and there are a number of events planned, both inside and out.
One of those is the Business After Hours today (Thursday, April 25) from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Reflector-Chronicle office, 305 N. Cedar, and we invite everyone to attend.
However, stay weather aware. Like the old commercial said, "Don't mess with Mother Nature!"
