TERPSTRA: It’s always sunny in my mind – some of the time

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

I always wondered what it would be like to be a weatherman.

Every region has a celebrity weatherman — at least they should.

My go-to weather guy was and always has been Ed Wilson.

For those not privy to Mr. Wilson (no, not the friendly neighbor on the early 1960s TV show “Dennis the Menace”), he’s the chief meteorologist at WHO-TV in Des Moines and has been for what seems like forever.

Now this isn’t a story about Mr. Wilson, but I am going to talk about him for a minute or two.

I got my picture taken with Ed Wilson the last time I was at the Iowa State Fair, which seems like a lifetime ago. It was only 8 years ago, but sometimes moments in life just feel old.

Ice, rain, sleet, snow — Ed was good about breaking into and interrupting my football or basketball games at any given moment and explaining the bad things that snowflakes can do to a person. Ed sometimes didn’t even have the decency to morph into a tiny box in the upper portion of my television screen. He’d wipe the whole game out.

How many times do I have to be reminded that it’s snowing outside, Ed? I have cheerleaders to watch and technical fouls to be witnessed, fantasy points to calculate and commercials to make fun of. I don’t need a continuous stream of somebody blabbing about cold fronts and constantly repeating the same thing over and over and over. Forget the Super Duper Doppler that they always bragged about on TV 13. Our doppler is bigger than yours. We have doppler and you don’t. We can predict the future!!!!

By the way, exclamation points are overrated and often unnecessary. That doesn’t mean I don’t use them, but you should be adept enough at your writing to be able to convey your point or message without the use of them. Do you understand what I am saying??!!!???

Ed hasn’t been too busy lately, because it’s been absolutely gorgeous outside. Perfect fall weather.

We’re fortunate, because the bad stuff is coming.

Put down the Farmer’s Almanac and step away from the Doppler.

Run for your lives!!!

You don’t mess with Mother Nature; Ed Wilson will tell you so.

Blizzards, snow storms — an avalanche???

Those are tame compared to a Snowmageddon, aka Snowpocalypse – which is just another way to say that a boat load of snow has been dumped over a vast area or region. There is also a phenomenon called a Gustnado – which doesn’t sound scary at all.

Did you hear about Susie? She got caught up in a Gustnado and was swept away. Sounds romantic to me.

But weather is important, for obvious reasons.

Winter moisture helps with the planting in spring. I’m no farming expert, but this much I do know. There are just certain things you have to have an understanding or grasp of if you claim to be an Iowa resident, and weather is one them. Farming is another.

It’s hard to get around when you have to stomp through three feet of snow or drive your car through zero visibility on roads that would be better suited for a skating rink.

It’s coming. Oh, is it ever on its way.

We can’t stop it, we can only hope to contain it.

That’s what they always said about Michael Jordan. I don’t know who the “they” is, but they sounded important. So much so that we all believed it.

Whenever there’s nothing to say, there’s always the weather.

At least that’s how I feel sometimes.

I don’t know who this person is standing next to me and I feel awkward waiting in line so I’ll just break the ice with the old, “crazy weather we’ve been having lately, isn’t it?”

Seems to always work, unless you have too many items in your grocery cart. Then you pretty much get radiated by a death stare or the laser-beam eyes. I don’t know if that’s an actual thing, but it sounded cool. That’s why you always want to talk or bring up the weather to the person in front of you, not behind you. Remember that the next time the line is 10-deep.

Last thing, because I’m not talking any more about whether or not we’re going to have a harsh or mild winter. That’s like predicting a basketball game between two equally talented programs. Flip a coin.

I know there are people out there who think they know. We all know our fair share of Ed Wilson’s who always cast their expert opinion upon you, are somehow clairvoyant and can tell me what is going to happen before it happened. And of course I mean no disrespect to people that actually bear the name of Ed Wilson. Hey, the WHO-TV 13 Mr. Wilson is my fave. He’s a pretty rad dude in my book.

Remember David Spritz? I didn’t think so. He was played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 movie “The Weather Man.” The gist of the movie is Spritz (I love that name) is going through a midlife crisis and people don’t respect him. People throw fast food at him while he is walking down the street. They’ll toss and hock burgers, fries and one of the worst possible menu items to be thrown at one person, a chocolate shake.

Spritz thinks people don’t like him because they think his high-paying job is too easy. David gets even more depressed when his father, a Pulitzer-Prize winning author, is diagnosed with cancer. He feels David has not lived up to his full potential.

David’s father, played by the brilliant Michael Caine, tells David that “the hardest thing to do and the right thing to do are often the same thing.” He also says that “nothing that has meaning is easy.” The rest of the movie is David basically trying to understand what his father said and implement that advice into his life.

It may snow this winter and we may even have a few blizzards. But if your shovel is big enough and you don’t slip on the ice – the path to a bright and sunny day is a lot more clear than you think.

That’s my forecast.