Blue Skies

Man once believed that the sky overhead was blue because everything beyond our atmosphere was blue. Space was showing through, man thought, and just by nature was a pretty shade of blue. As we learned later, however, space is simply nothing and has no color. There had to be another explanation for the blue sky above our heads.

As Galileo discovered more about optics, he taught us that light emitted from the sun is all colors at once. But some of the light is refracted by molecules of air, dust, moisture and other stuff as the sun streams through our atmosphere. The blue and violet rays are scattered easily because of their short wave lengths. Red rays are longer and pass through without being refracted. That's why we see the sky as blue.

To this day, blue skies possess strong meaning for man. It's a popular notion that blue skies mean good fortune and no worries. Life is good when skies are blue. On the other hand, clouds mean doom is near and that we should worry and wring our hands. We wish clouds would never darken our skies. But that’s just not realistic; if the skies were blue all the time the earth would never receive any rain. Food and flowers wouldn't grow and then we'd starve.

Farmers must think that television weather people are nuts. And not just because of their goofiness and forced familiarity. It's that they are so excited by good weather. They're just bursting to tell us that it's going to be clear and fair. "Yet another beautiful day out there," they might say with pride during an especially long sunny spell. Meanwhile all the crops are parched and dying. Imagine how a farmer must feel as his crops fail from drought while he sits alone and watches a suspiciously friendly weather girl chirp about how lucky we are to have yet another beautiful day.

Some sunny day a TV weather guy will be giggling with excitement in front of his map while the top story is about rioting at the supermarkets because there's no food. Starving and rioting all on yet another beautiful day. Most regular people are excited to meet television personalities. But I bet a farmer would punch a weatherman if they met. Probably knock him on his ass.