Do That Thing You Do A reader who is a fellow snow lover once wrote me and said she liked it when I express how much I appreciate the snow, and added that people who live up here and complain about the snow probably need to go somewhere else. I agree, and it’s really easy to do that in Southern California. You only have to go about 14 miles in any direction. Give my regards to the city and stay warm. I’ll stay up here. I was excited when I heard that a big storm was headed this way. What is it with this wimpy winter? It came in like a lion, and it almost looked like it would go out like a toy poodle (a lamb is too big and ferocious). But you can’t even listen to these weather “experts” anymore. On Monday of last week they were saying it’s going to be dry for a month, and then on Tuesday night it rained. After I send this column to production but before it gets printed, another storm is predicted, a big one, but we need much more than that. Since it’s too late to grab this column back from the printer, you’ll either be laughing at me as you look at the winter wonderland outside your window, or you’ll be asking again, “What storm?” I’m probably going to regret wishing for winter weather, like I did after this column came out on Christmas. At the time I was hoping for lots of snow. I should have been more specific and hoped that the snow level would go down to San Bernardino, like it does once or twice a year, and then have the snow come down like crazy. That’s what should have happened. Then those kids who should have never been in Waterman Canyon on Christmas would have been laughing and squealing, and making snowballs and snowmen. Their only fear of harm would have been that they would be whacked too hard in the head by a snowball, and they would have been telling that joyful Christmas story to their kids and grandkids for a long time. What a difference a few degrees makes. What we need is either that low snow level, or a light snow up higher that just goes on forever. This is where I need your help. Back on Oct. 29 during the evacuation you all down there did something to make three weeks of searing heat miraculously turn, in one day, into the earliest snowfall I have ever heard about in this place. I was here, and saw it happen. I watched firefighters who were burning up on Wednesday, and then shivering in their boots on Thursday. I’m a very pragmatic kind of guy, but when I say you all did something, it’s because every once in a while I believe something happens that is just too good to be created out of chance. You had to be here. People who held out here were amazed when that cold wind started blowing the Rim fog over Top Town and the trees started dripping their “tree rain.” Maybe it was a combination of prayers being answered, karma, focused energy, chanting, rituals, voodoo or good, old-fashioned rain dancing, but you can’t convince me that five days before when that fire started, snow and rain had already been in the cards for the 29th. Now, just like then, people are getting fed up. You hear them talking about it every day. Too many dry days means that a disaster is growing, even if you can’t see coming this time. I can see it on your faces that all of your brains are getting to work up here again, and I bet you’re going to try and do that thing you do. I take it a little more seriously now. So do that thing again, but this time maybe not so forcefully. You know, if you all are good enough, or have good enough connections, to make it snow in October, you might want to tone it down a bit in February, because you’ve already got a few things working for you that you didn’t have in October, like the jet stream, cold and high humidity. But be careful what you hope for. Like I whined about last week, I grew up in Lakeside in San Diego County, where we all knew the story of The Rainmaker, Charles Hatfield, who referred to himself as the Moisture Accelerator. Back at the turn of the century, sorry, last century (I’ll never get used to that), this guy, Hatfield, was going to be the savior of drought-plagued San Diego County. In 1915, the reservoir that formed Lake Morena, where my parents lived out their last days, was only about one-third full, and getting it full and keeping it that way was thought to be the greatest hope for growth of the city of San Diego. Enter Charles Hatfield, who had become sort of a folk hero because he had produced results all over California, even though his experiments with chemicals and towers that billowed smoke and other contraptions were not proven scientifically. Because of this, the San Diego City Council balked at using taxpayer money for his services. So Hatfield offered to provide the rain free, but he would charge $1,000 per inch for anything between 40 and 50 inches, and anything over 50 inches would be free. The snickering city council agreed to pay him a $10,000 flat fee if he would just fill up the Morena reservoir. He succeeded. Really succeeded. He destroyed a few dams and killed 20 people in the process. Hatfield demonstrated that he could “make” rain, but, as he had shown earlier in Northern California when he “produced” 40 inches of rain in three hours, he had a little problem with the part about turning it off. In San Diego County, it rained torrentially for six straight days. Ten billion gallons of water caused death and destruction throughout the county. It took 22 years of court battles to determine that God, not Hatfield, was the only one who was entitled to be paid for rainmaking services rendered, or to be sued for the millions of dollars in damages and loss of life that the floods had caused. Hatfield was either a great pluviculturist (look it up, I had to) or a meteorologist who was not only way ahead of his time, but who had great timing as well. So do it softly, O.K.? Don’t make potions or massive evaporators like Hatfield. Just tone down what you did in October. Let’s have 10 straight days where we slowly get, say, four or five inches of snow a day. It just keeps coming down steadily, but not so much that the rain hits hard below. Then we can get the moisture and cold we and our trees need, but we can also still have the little comforts in life, like roads and electricity and food. O.K.? Remember—softly, quietly...
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