I was sort of "shamed" into cleaning up my office AKA my "man cave" by my daughter. She remarked about how cluttered and messy it looked with all the vanilla folders, loose-leaf binders and books, strewn about the room both on my makeshift coffee table, desks (I have two of them in the room) and on the various shelves and storage bins that I also have in the room.
She asked, "When was the last time you read or used that 'stuff'' ? Some of it looks like it is ancient!" I then paused and realized she made a valid point. (Okay, she was right.) So I began the massive cleanup (which I really did intend on doing along but my usual procrastination prevented me from doing so until now).
Some of these papers and booklets were indeed old! They were memories from my days as an "amateur" meteorologist. In the folders and binders are pamphlets and booklets that I purchased from the U.S. Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C. when I was 9 and 10 years old! (That makes them over 50 years old!!) For sentimental reasons I have kept them (and will keep them). In many ways these and all my other papers and books in my weather collection are my personal weather history of my years in weather AND also a history of the field of meteorology, itself.
What was in these folders and binders ? Some contained AMS Meteorological monographs, others had books, pamphlets and articles on assorted topics in meteorology (and oceanography, too which I studied as well, when I was in college). Some of the books and articles dealt with short and long range weather forecasting. Others were on topics like tropical meteorology and or hurricane forecasting. It was hurricanes taht got me interested in meteorology. It was my faint recollections of Hurricane Donna that peaked my interest in weather.
Other papers in my collection dealt with topics such as: atmospheric (planetary waves), severe weather, winter weather case studies and forecasting of such for various parts of the U.S. including the Northeast. Some of these papers were from my college days back in the early 70s. They were required reading for my studies; some of the more recent ones were procured for personal research for projects that I either did or intended to do (and still hope to do). I also found my two research papers that I did on severe weather for the area: One on the Mechanicville Tornado that occurred in May of 1998 and the other on an early morning severe weather event (and a rare November tornado in Columbia county) over Eastern NY State. The former paper I presented at the Northeast Storm Conference in Saratoga Springs in March 1999.
Enough of the reminiscing. Onto my "cleaning" project and my dilemma: What do I toss and what to keep? First I began condensing 'stuff'. I organized my binders into topics and then placed the articles that matched the topic into a LARGE loose leaf binder. My "tropical" weather folders were far and away the most in number. So I threw out a lot of papers, articles and booklets, especially articles from the 60s and even 50s. However, I did keep a couple from this "era". There was a paper on Hurricane Donna and its two eyes. This paper was procured for me by a very special and dear friend who knew how this hurricane started me on my road to my career in meteorology.
Tied for second place in the bloated folders and binders category were my severe weather and winter weather forecasting ones. Some of the papers were from the 1970 and earlier. Some of them were "old school" forecast techniques that are now no longer used (much). I at least for now can still recall the techniques and use them today if needed. Regardless, I threw many of them away. I also realized that in some cases, I had duplicates and even a few triplicates of articles and research papers. No sentimentalism here- this is an easy decision, toss them out!
The project that I was "shamed" into doing is now near complete, at least as far as the condensing goes. I lost track of how many vanilla folders I discarded in my cleaning but I do know I know that I now have 18 loose-leaf binders that I was able to clear out completely. (If anyone needs loose-leaf binders, let me know I'll give you a better deal than Staples!)
This project got me reminiscing of my days as a "amateur" weatherman. Definitely this will be another blog post in the not too distant future.
[I will be adding some photos soon!]
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