Watching the weather

    Scott Loftis

It’s that time of year when the weatherman just can’t be trusted. We might get some rain on Tuesday, or we might get a foot of snow. Ditto for Friday. It all depends on which forecast you’re looking at and the odds are pretty good that none of them are right.

I’m hoping for the best, but I won’t be surprised if we wind up with a serious “winter weather event.”

I’m not a fan of the cold weather, especially now that I’m a little thinner than I was in winters past. My hands constantly seem to be freezing, even when I’m safe and warm indoors.

I don’t like driving on the snow, either. Once upon a time, I was young and bulletproof (or so I thought) and didn’t think twice about zipping down the road on snow or even ice. About four 360-degree spins on an ice-covered hill near Mountain Home in the winter of 1990 deterred me some, however.

Another time, I was at home enjoying a day off from the sports desk at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock when I got a call from the beat writer for the UALR basketball team. The Trojans were playing a team from Florida that night, as I recall, and the Florida newspaper needed a freelancer to send them a short game story.

It was 1993, I believe. I was still at a point in my career where I’d do just about anything to get my byline in print, and still at a point in my bank account where the $20 or so that I probably would have been paid was worth driving 30 minutes or so on an icy interstate to get to the game.

Everything went fine until just before I got into Little Rock. Then I felt my car start to slide on an overpass and before I knew it I had gently sideswiped a guardrail.

I opened my door to step out and assess the damage, but as soon as my left foot hit the ground it slid out from under me and I essentially fell out of the car and into the path of oncoming traffic.

Luckily, I didn’t get run over. But it was a close enough call to persuade me to get off at the next exit, turn around and head back home. I don’t know who wound up covering that game for the out-oftown paper, but I still could use that 20 bucks.

These days, I’m a lot more cautious. And thanks to the miracle of the internet, I can pretty much do everything I need to do to get the weekly paper out from the comfort of my home office.

All I have to do is be sure not to disturb my wife — who works from home most days — and hope the lights and the wi-fi stay on.

Let’s all do our best this week to stay warm and safe.

•••

Scott Loftis is editor and publisher of the Carroll County News. His email address is SLoftis@CarrollCoNews.com.