barometer

I am sitting in the chair where my Dad sat for the past few years. On the wall between the chair and the window is Dad's barometer. The old style, wood frame with gold rims. On the top the headings read: Rain - Change - Fair. I wonder about which barometer this one is. He always tapped the barometer in the morning and in the evening when I was little. I watched and thought it was a magic language only he knew.

Once, years ago when my nephew Simon was small,  maybe 3 or 4 years old, he was crying because of some conflict with his older brother. He was inconsolable. Dad (Nampa) took him in his arms and said, " I know, I know it's hard.The barometric pressure is really low today"

I watched from around the corner, and marveled at his use of a reference as esoteric as barometric pressure  to a small kid, and yet it seemed again maybe there was a magic he was invoking which those of us uninitiated into the math of meteorology could fully comprehend.

After the tearful Simon, his brother Nick and their parents left I asked him about how the barometric pressure would affect a crying child. He replied, "Oh, It was just the first thing that came into my head. I was just trying to distract him."

Brilliant.

That was my Dad. Meteorologist, navigator by the stars, comforter of little children.