*The Weather Station* - Weather Spotter Poetry
* The Weather Station *
Written by: Joe Colwell
@ - January 2008
The old box lay in a garage, neglected,
Tossed aside like an old rag.
I’d been searching years for one.
The Weather Service said, take it. Surplus to us.
I loaded it into my truck, took it to its new home,
Rescued like an abandoned dog.
It would sit now near my yard.
Giving shelter from the sun for my thermometer.
The slatted box once housed an older thermometer
Sitting in some remote meadow.
Helping a young agency tell someone who cared,
A history of temperatures, highs and lows.
White paint peeling, boards warped.
Rusted screws and nails, some loose.
The metal tag, readable through the whitewash, says “US Weather Bureau”.
Long ago renamed as the National Weather Service.
What does this shelter know, where has it been?
Who put the original white paint on the new boards?
What kind of wood, where was it made?
In this day of plastic and foreign made, who will ever remember? Who will care?
They were called Cotton Region Shelters. CRS.
Developed in the southern US
Where they grow cotton.
It got hot there. Someone wanted to know how hot.
Don’t put the thermometer in the sun, boy.
But, boss, aint no shade.
Well let’s make some, but let the air through.
Paint it white while you’re at it.
The old louvered box, with hinged door,
Was almost big enough to crawl into.
Not for me, but maybe an inquisitive boy.
Also for wasps. Careful when you open the door.
When new, it was a work of art.
Carefully crafted, each one hand made.
People knew quality then. They cared.
Pride in a product that knew the weather, built tough for action.
It was placed in a clearing next to the old Ranger Station.
Taken up by horse drawn wagon.
Old trail too rough for those new Model T’s.
Read the temperatures daily were the instructions.
It sat on the edge of a wildflower meadow.
Surrounded by huge old spruce, flutter leafed aspen trees nearby.
The old ranger cabin sat defiant in its decay, logs weathered grey,
Windows frosted from years of hail and snow.
Flagpole tilted, white paint almost all gone.
The old horse corral still visible
Among the fallen and rotted aspen poles.
The old weather box tilting on its wobbly supports.
No Rangers staying here since old Tom Willoughby
Back in 29. Right before the Depression.
He rode with Gifford and the original rangers
When the national forest was created.
Surveyed the range, built the cabin.
Three days out from Montrose.
Around the campfire, he told stories of Griz
The wildness now a memory.
Old weather bureau put up the fancy white box
With the new alcohol and mercury thermometer.
Read the weather when you can. Daily hi’s and lo’s.
Rain, too if you can. Would like the snow, but too hard to get to in the winter.
Tom complained a little,
But he read the data when he stayed there.
Hummingbird built a nest in the corner one year.
Must have fought it out with the hornet nest in the other corner.
Tom forgot his pad of paper a few times.
Numbers scratched all along the bottom of the box, inside.
Were they temperatures, or maybe count on sheep or cattle?
One hundred forty two seems a bit high for temps up here.
Will never know.
Tom left this earth back in thirty nine.
He left an old pair of spurs hanging on the back wall.
Rusted now by years of that rain he never got to measure.
Weather bureau lost all track of the box.
Records of highs and lows disappeared
In the pile of numbers lying in yellowed file folders
Electronic sensor down the road reads the weather now.
Sends it to a satellite, then to a computer.
Would all be foreign to Tom. He would laugh at it all.
No one sets foot on the ground, he would say,
Then he would spit and walk away shaking his head.
He could forecast the weather by looking at the sky,
Feeling the breeze, rubbing his knees.
You know this country or else
Get caught in a blizzard or lightning storm, he would say.
The station now has a new life.
Fresh coat of paint, new electronic thermometer.
It watches a different mountain now, gets less rain.
Much less snow, but much more heat.
I think of the stories it could tell.
The blizzard of 39 when it was completely covered by snow until June.
It stood five feet above the ground.
The lightning strike that killed the horse in the corral.
The last grizzly that wandered by, lonely,
Looking for a mate that he would never find.
Wolves carefully circling the porcupine,
Huddled under the box, quills poised.
The thermometer, covered by an old hornets nest,
Stolen by some kid on a motorcycle, then tossed aside.
No bullet holes in the box. Not so the old cabin.
A modern weather man on vacation happened to see it.
Reverently, he took it down.
He understood history. A valuable find.
He cleaned it off, paint flaking, slat falling out.
Still forgotten, it went into the corner of a shed with three others.
Similar stories, different lives.
CRS. Cotton Region Shelters.
Long way from home. Lets rename them.
ARS. Alpine region shelters.
They were part of these mountains,
Telling us part of its history, its toughness.
Life up there isnt easy. On trees. On horses.
On old Rangers that sat around a campfire.
Shadows of flames flickered on a freshly painted
Ghostly box sitting on stilts, thermometer inside.
On duty 24/7. Ready to serve.
Like old Tom the Ranger. Like Blaze, his horse.
Show a little respect as you open that door,
Hinged on the bottom. Old metal plaque
Proclaiming Property of US Weather Bureau.
Where men and women, not computers, once read our history.
Life goes on, like the weather,
Clouds drift by, shading the sun.
Temperatures go up, go down.
Life, like weather is a circle. No beginning, no end. It just changes.
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