Specifically when they interrupt a program I’m watching to let me know about some weak thunderstorm three counties away that isn’t a threat to anyone. And of course the weather is coated with that thick glaze of fearmongering that paints the coverage of every piece of TV news.
And then there is my biggest pet peeve, coming home to watch a DVR’d 30 Rock after a long day at work and getting 30 minutes of James Spann.
I’ve always wanted a single channel that people could go to for dedicated weather coverage that won’t interrupt a show that I’m watching — you know, like The Weather Channel.
I have relatives who could watch weather programming for days. Not me.
But after April 27, you can count me among those who can at least tolerate when a meteorologist interrupts whatever show I’m watching.
Because now, after the college town that I moved to at the tender age of 18 was destroyed in so many places, the town that nurtured me and taught me what it is to be a human being has suffered so much … because now that so many are dead in the town that taught me how to live, I realize how petty it is to worry about something like a television show.
So, James Spann, I’m sorry about everything I’ve ever said about you, because you, sir, along with your meteorologist contemporaries, saved lives on April 27. Some of those lives could very well have been some of the most precious people in my life. And every one of those lives was precious to someone.
So as that bar runs across the bottom of my screen telling me how I can give to help the victims of the severe weather in Alabama and across the South, I’m not frustrated. I’m happy because I know it’s helping people who need it.
And I hope that everyone out there who is able can find something to give — time, money, clothes, whatever — to whatever community you’re connected to that was hit.
