So, here is my question. Where does Jim Cantore go for vacation? Does he go to the beach??? During hurricane season???? If he does, does he have to use an assumed name to check in? If I ran the chamber of commerce in a beach town I would tell all of the hotel owners not to allow him to stay there. After all, what happens with the other guests when he walks through the lobby? Do they all erupt in a state of panic thinking that although the sky is perfectly blue, a hurricane must be on the way?
I wonder what would happen if he showed up in Idaho for vacation. First of all, the people in Idaho probably don't even know who he is. They probably only watch The Weather Channel in the winter to find out if it is likely to snow. I don't recall ever seeing him report on a snow storm. But if people from Florida happened to be vacationing in Idaho and he walked through the hotel lobby would they suddenly go into hysterics?
My guess is that if they are true Floridians they would immediately ask the Idaho hotel manager if he knows of a place where they could rent surf boards so that they could go ride the waves before the storm hits. Then they would fill the bathtub in their room with water and go to Home Depot to buy lumber or tape (depending on the size of the non-existent storm) to put on the hotel rooms windows. After that was complete they would find a hurricane lamp fill it with oil and make sure that they had plenty of matches so that they could ride the storm out in the comfort of their Boise hotel room. Once all of that was done, they would head to the nearest bar and wait for the reporters to show up and interview the drunks who are planning to ride out the storm. The catch is, they will only interview you if you are toothless, shirtless and drunk. So, if you really want to be on TV, you'll have to take the dentures out!
He was on the ABC news the other night reporting from Florida where Debby was making her way across the state and I started thinking about what a crappy day it would be if Jim Cantore showed up and started doing a live report from in front of your house. In my mind, that would be a lot worse than having a 60 Minutes film crew show up at your workplace.
Do insurance adjusters track where he has been and then call to make hotel reservations in the same place for the following week? I would think that this would be a very effective manner of planning your schedule if you are an insurance adjuster during hurricane season. Just turn the TV to The Weather Channel, watch for half an hour or so, see where Jim Cantore is today and then plan your travel for the following week. I am sure it would also make it easy for your spouse to know where you are going and where you have been. Who cares where Matt Lauer is at. The more important question is, "Where In The World Is Jim Cantore?"
In August of 1983, me, Ronnie and Mom sat in our house in Bay City as hurricane Alicia made landfall just west of Galveston. During the day before she made landfall I had to work at the former employer (who shall not be named). My store manager was Gus Seeker, I was scared to death of him. The store had metal doors that pulled down over the windows and doors in back, but the front windows and doors had to be taped. So, Mr. Seeker went to the hardware store and got tape and had someone get a ladder and tape those doors and windows up. He kept the store open until 5 that afternoon which means I was at work until 5. I was starting to get pretty anxious by the time he let us leave.
When I got home, everybody was outside. Our windows were already taped but we had a huge pear tree in the backyard that was loaded with fruit. Dad had called and said to get all the pears off the tree before the storm hit. I was trying to figure out why Dad wanted those pears so bad until Mom explained that the pears would fly through the air like missals once the winds hit. Suddenly it became important to me to get the pears out of the tree. Dad was at work because the phone company was on strike and since he was management he was having to do the job of a lineman.
I had a little 13 inch black and white TV in my room, but it was hard to see the weather radar on it so as the storm got closer Ronnie and I went to the living room and watched channel 13 out of Houston to find out if we were going to be blown away. My mother came to my room before she went to bed and told me to let her know when it made landfall. I couldn't believe that she could sleep through it but she did! When the storm made landfall, I woke her up and told her, she asked where, I told her that and she went back to sleep.
Dad said that when the eye of the storm went over Alvin he was there driving down the road checking for down telephone lines. He said the only other people out were news crews. I wonder if an adolescent Jim Cantore was among them.
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