"EVERYONE KNOWS IT'S WINDY."
[Don't call me, Larry Ramos. I know she spells it with an 'E'.]
Of all the weather conditions we are asked to weather? Wind would be my least favorite. Maybe it is all those liveshots in snowstorms where the reporter takes the brunt of the wind so the photographer can keep his or her lens clear.
[If you've ever judged a reporter in that set of circumstances with something like, " Jeez, can't that reporter pronounce anything right?" Well, TAKE IT BACK! You try it sometime.]
Maybe it is this story where I'm in the parking lot, on the east side of a 7 story building, in January? This downslope wind from the west kicks up to 60 mph? Well it swirls around the building creating a wind shear over ice? This wind shear sucks me in and sends me speed skating in my Florsheims for about 200 feet. I escape with a scraped knee...but you can imagine what it does to my wind opinion.
There are a hundred of these stories, but I think you get my point.
I know it is going to be windy and chilly today? It kills my enthusiasm for a bike ride. So I opt for a brisk walk. And oddly, I'm glad. You see there ARE some really NICE things about wind . Of course some of them have to do with timing and no snow.
I tell my Broadcast Journalism students to always be looking for great moving pictures and dramatic natural sound. Check your calendar and see if you can guess where I'm going with this.
I don't care where you live on the planet, or what your allegience, there is almost nothing more dramatic and heart rending as a Flag Flapping at Full Rectangle.. Thank you Veterans day for reminding me. You could have your eyes tightly shut. And if I were to play a pixel or two of a flag flapping, 98.9 percent of you would identify it immediately. [ A few of us might mix it up with apparrel out on the clothesline. Just a few of us.]
But if I want to kick it up to 99.9 percent, I'd add the rhythmic rapping of the hardware on the flag's tether against the flagpole. Nothing else sounds like that. Nothing else spurs the same emotional clanking in the brain.
And I've always loved the wind's relationship with leaves. Today, this late in Fall, the leaves are dry, thin, crunchy. And yeah, they rustle a lot on grass. But I like the sounds they produce on concrete and asphalt. I love the big crisp Mapleand Oak leaves on asphalt. They sound like galloping herds of horses. If you've got a tailwind, it's as if you are running with them. A head wind? Look Out! You are about to get trampled.
Two neighborhood girls come by last week, and want to rake our leaves? I say "come back this coming week when all the Aspen have undressed."
When they get here I think I'm going to make handing them a rake provisional on them playing in those leaves for an hour. That's another cool windy picture full of natural sound I'd forgotten about.
Of course, we could skip to the Spring and get the father and his offspring in the Park. They are running and gleefully shouting, hanging on to a taut string. There is that wonderful flapping of tissue paper kites just before they dive to their earthly demise.
[I won't say whether or not I really like that THUD sound, too.]
[Why is it mothers never fly kites? I think it is a vestige of sexism we've overlooked.]
Still it is my least favorite weather condition. As I'm saying that I can think of just one other great thing about being in wind? GETTING OUT OF IT.
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