I am dictating these lines in the early afternoon of September 4. Today is Sunday and so far it seems to be a peaceful day. I cite the peace and quiet of this Sunday as contrasted with the multitude of problems that existed just one week ago when Hurricane Irene was upon us.
It would beggar the imagination to conclude that any essayist could fail to mention the effects of Hurricane Irene. I do not wish to toy with beggaring the imagination, so here are my thoughts about Hurricane Irene. These are basically disconnected thoughts that reflect my view of the hurricane exactly one week after it passed over the great and ghostly state of New Jersey.
There was a television program this morning to which I listened to all of the dialogue. It was Howard Kurtz with Howard Kurtz’s estimate of how the media treated the hurricane. If I read him correctly, Kurtz seemed to believe that the media hyped the hurricane and that it was not such a big deal after all. Howard Kurtz has his viewpoint and, if I may say so, Mr. Kurtz is full of baloney. If this were not a family publication, my thoughts about Mr. Kurtz would be a bit more pungent. As far as I am concerned, the media in the United States handled the hurricane superbly. The media kept us informed as to the progress of the storm as it made its way northward to New York City and Boston and other locations to the north. The media reports as the storm progressed northward were in my estimation all consuming. Other programs normally scheduled for last Sunday were cancelled so that the media could report on the progress of the storm. When the storm approached, it poured great gobs of water in the form of rainfall on our house and on the surrounding properties, and the windfall that accompanied the storm threatened to loosen our roof from the house. How anyone can say that the media over-hyped the storm is beyond my comprehension. So, point one is that in all of my 90 years of residence on the planet Earth, Hurricane Irene was an event that warranted the attention that was paid to it by the American media.
Point two, in my humble opinion the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, was outstanding. He told residents in low-lying areas of New York City that it was time to leave. There was no hysteria in his voice. Rather it was the voice that was commanding. It told the residents of New York that the better part of valor was to get the hell out of low-lying areas and he seemed to mean it. Mr. Bloomberg is not my mayor. I wish that every mayor could be so thoughtful for his constituents. Mayor Bloomberg has been a Democrat, then a Republican, and then an Independent. Regardless of my politics, I believe that if he ran for a fourth term as a resident of New Jersey I would cast an absentee ballot in his favor.
After Mr. Bloomberg had been broadcasting his warnings to the residents of New York, belatedly the governor of New Jersey, a fat clown named Chris Christie thought he ought to get into the act. So Chris Christie asked for his helicopter pilot to fire up the engines and he made a tour of cities where the forecasters told him there would be problems. In the end, Chris Christie inspired no one. On the other hand, Mr. Bloomberg inspired me as well as others with his up-to-date reports on the progress of the storm.
A third line of reasoning, or in fact it is unreasoning, is that of Michele Bachmann. During the storm, she appeared on television to announce that the recent earthquakes in New Jersey and other locations on the east coast and now the hurricane were a message from God. I take strong exception to a godly creature who wishes to inflict pain on human beings. The fact of the matter is that the residents of the east coast of the United States did not flock to prayer meetings in the hope of diverting the storm. They knew it was coming and they prepared to handle it as best they could. There was no panic to throw themselves at the foot of the altar in the hope of altering the course of the storm. I view that as a very positive development which does away with the superstition that celestial creatures control our lives. Hurricanes happen because the weather conditions are right. There is no alternative.
Now, speaking of spiritual creatures brings to mind my own reaction. As most of you know, I am a non-believer in religious affairs. If I had prayed to alter the course of the storm, it would have fallen on deaf spiritual ears. My belief is that in the spiritual world there is a compact which guarantees that any messages from me delivered in prayer will be ignored. I believe that Allah, Jesus, Buddha, and the angel Moroni of the Mormon faith would all act in concert consistent with the memorandum on their calendar pads which tells them that any plea in any prayer coming from Ed Carr is to be ignored because in the eyes of the spiritual world, Ed Carr is a low-life S.O.B. I accept those judgments and file them under the heading of humorous entreaties.
Now I come to a final point, which is the title to this essay. In case you have forgotten the title, it is “Petering Out with Hurricane Irene.” The term of “petering out” has at least two meanings. It means, for most, the gradual diminishment of any force. For example, when a tire is inflated and the valve in the stem is removed, the tire gushes air for a while and then settles into silence, thus petering out. Secondly, for those of you who are interested in such things, the word “peter” has a connection with the male genitalia and because this is a family publication, that will not be dealt with here.
On the other hand, as the storm approached, I followed its progress from North Carolina through Washington and then Philadelphia, and finally New York. After the storm had passed, my attention came to bear on the water in the rec room and worries about trees. After a few days, those concerns tended to vanish so I think we see that Hurricane Irene petered out. I suspect that this is an ancient construction of the English language. My parents, who were born in the 1880s, remembered “petering out” as a lively term which existed through their lifetimes. But as time has gone on, “petering out” has lost its currency. I still think that it is a good term.
So the hurricane is one week behind us; it may be viewed in the rear-view mirror. On the other hand we have two other concerns having to do with a storm in the Atlantic that may develop into a hurricane and one in the Gulf Coast. The fact of the matter is that in my long life, I do not wish ever to be bothered again by a hurricane. I realize praying about moving hurricanes in my case would be pointless, but for all of my friends, may I say that Hurricane Irene is about all of the hurricanes that we can handle for a while.
E. E. CARR
September 4, 2011
Essay 579
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Kevin’s commentary: as I publish this, the coast has been once again assaulted by the weather, this time in the form of a rather harsh blizzard.
Christie meanwhile has proven that he’s not a complete horse’s ass, and handled — to the best of my knowledge — hurricane Sandy rather well. I’m sure Pop will be writing about the current blizzard, perhaps even as I write these words. It is an event that seems to require coverage as much as Irene did.
In any event I think that it is clear that God just like Californians and Texans better because they are afflicted with neither hurricanes nor blizzards and we are all rather happy for it.