I Don't Gotta Be "He" Anymore. But I Will.

For the first 10 years and half-billion members Facebook users had two choices for gender - male or female.  Worked for me, but then I’m so last millennium.   Facebook has now added 51 new gender choices, none of which include the most accurate gender description for me:  “inverse age-intellectual maturity level male”.   Or, as I often remind people, you are only young once but you can be immature forever.  In the absence of this gender ID, I plan to stick with my same old garden variety male gender identification on Facebook.

I HAVE been at odds with society in another area and I have an announcement to make.  I’m changing teams.  I was raised an “Astronomical Seasonal” person.  These people celebrate the first day of Spring the same day the Vernal Equinox occurs, either March 20 or 21.  I, on the other hand, have always considered March 1 to be the first day of spring.  It turns out there is a name for people like me - I am a Meteorological Seasonal guy.  Meteorological Seasonal people identify winter as the coldest three months of the year - December, January and February.  For us, spring begins on March 1.  There is a third option – Solar Seasonal.  Solar Seasonal people consider winter as the three months of the year with the least sunlight - November, December and January.  For Solar Seasonal people, spring began on February 1.  That is too radical, even for a “take a walk on the wild side” guy like me.

So, spring begins tomorrow for us Meteorological Seasonal people!  Hooray!  Unfortunately, that has zero effect on the weather forecast.  As of this morning it contained the “S” word on 5 days of the 10 day forecast.  No matter how one identifies seasons, I think we can all agree that Henry Van Dyke hit the nail precisely on the head when he observed “The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.  The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month”.

Never fear – according to the National Weather Service, March 3-7 is Severe Weather Awareness Week in Missouri, a definite harbinger of spring.  A state-wide tornado siren drill is scheduled for March 4 at 1:30 pm.  If the possibility of tornados exists on March 4, the day after our current Winter Storm Watch ends, the drill will be moved to March 6.

This is Missouri. 

Don’t rule it out.