Weather Man

My hostess' brother is the Weather Man. He used to work for the weather service in Nome, as the weather forecaster, which is different from the meteorologist, but since he's entirely Inupiaq and born into snow, his instincts get cred. He was known to change the forecast the meteorologist in Fairbanks had for Nome, he'd call up and say: "Hey, do you know something I don't" and then they'd give in. He asked me to go for a ride up the road to see how far along they were on clearing it of snow, and how could I say no to that. I mean, who doesn't want to know how the road-clearing is going. About five miles out he nodded his consent and declared the road-workers were doing a much better job this year. He didn't say much else. He made jokes about things I didn’t understand, and as he’d forgotten his hearing aid, he couldn’t really hear me asking about it either. So we just laughed, which is what people do in the north when things get complicated. Laugh.