Fort Worth, Then and Now

I was fortunate enough to take a couple of extra days to visit a relative who lives on the east side of the Metromess on my recent trip down there. The extra days also allowed me to spend one full day driving around Fort Worth to reminisce about all the good and bad times, the long-haul drive from the house I grew up in to the magnet schools I attended, and various locations that provided those childhood lessons that seemed unnecessary but now are viewed as important life lessons. Much has changed; I thought I was lost when driving west on I-30 and seeing the new Cowboys super-mega-damn-the-recession-Jerry-Jones-showing-off Stadium which made me think I was on Loop 12 heading towards Irving, the newest addition to the Fort Worth skyline throwing me for a loop, redevelopment of my childhood playground, and the incessant expansion of the city towards the southwest (Bryant Irving, Alta Mesa, Benbrook Drives to name a few). However, many important places still remain and still appear just as they have in my mind for so long.

Kincaid's Burgers still is in the old grocery store and serving up some of the best hamburgers in town, the elementary school still looks the same from the front (although has been expanded multiple times in the back, my childhood home still looks the same, Ridgemar Mall still has the one parking lot where Dad and I would go and sit for hours watching the various bombers and fighters take off from Carswell Air Force Base (now known as Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth Carswell/NASJRBFWC...and NOAA thinks it has the run on acronyms), and all the soccer complexes that countless Saturday mornings were spent at in my much younger years still show signs of generations of kids running across them. The local "Bureau" office still stands a bit out of place buried in an area of industrial warehouses, but with a minor addition of some horses that they can now count as neighbors.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to take a ride through Downtown to see Sundance Square and then north into the Stockyards as I am still trying to get the hang of driving the pick-up in urban traffic. There were some accidents that afternoon that would have required creative navigation among the skyscrapers and parking lots of Downtown. That in and of itself would need a sharp recall of what streets were one-way or not, and it has been WAY too long since I had done that...but I digress. I would have loved to have gone back to the old Fort Worth National/Texas American Bank building and taken a picture in the room that used to be my Dad's office to see what had become of this childhood playground (on weekends when I'd go with Dad if he had some catch-up work to do and I still remember the view from the windows). I can still remember the taste of the burgers from Billy Miner's Saloon and hear the crunch of the peanut shells on the floor, the aroma of Chicago-style deep dish pizza at Uno's Pizzaria, and the fried alligator and jambalaya from Razzoo's Cajun Cafe. However, it is satisfying to know that those locations still stand as a reminder, a beacon perhaps, of childhood days gone by and the opportunity to recall various memories with the full sensory experience they can provide.

Alas, the weekend was too short. I would have loved spending a couple of evenings at The Flying Saucer with many of the people I saw at Al's retirement dinner, again reminiscing of storm chases gone past, the prospects of the upcoming chasing, and various other hobbies or state-of-the-world discussions that inevitably come up over a stein of whatever your favorite brew in the world is. Unfortunately the real-world beckoned and the time-warp started as I drove west on I-20 that Saturday; all the drives from Fort Worth to grad school seemed to compress as the miles clicked down, all the memories of people I have met and interacted with started speeding by at a fast pace, and then I arrived in the present on the South Plains. And now it is back to the grind; a week chocked full of conference-calls, webinars, staff meetings, and shift work.

Keep the places where the West did begin for me Fort Worth; don't let the folks to your east try to change you at all...

Farewell to a mentor, teacher, and good friend

I return to the South Plains filled with a mix of emotions after spending the last two days in the Metroplex. The trip was an opportunity to visit my sister for an evening, to see an old family friend, but most importantly to see someone off for the start of his retirement.

In the summer of 1994, I walked into "The Bureau" as a wet-behind-the-ear junior in high school who had an insatiable desire to become a meteorologist. After the introductory tour and explanation of what I was going to be doing, I started to meet my fellow co-workers. When the next shift came in, a gentleman walked in with a red Rubbermaid box in hand and quickly started getting a briefing on what the state of the weather was. One of my fellow SCEPs leaned over and whispered "Do you know who that is?" to which I, very much a rookie in the weather world replied "Should I?". Her response: "That's Al Moller."

And so began five years of mentoring and teaching while I worked in the summers at the North Texas "Bureau" office. However, it was also the start of a friendship that went beyond meteorology...into love of baseball, photography, stormchasing, and Texas blues music. Al was the one that (patiently) taught me the intricacies of hand analysis, took me on my first stormchase, and challenged me to apply what I was learning in my college career to my job at "the Bureau". Through these activities, I was able to develop a finer appreciation of our common interests as well as meet many people in the research and stormchasing communities that I now consider my friends as well. We would usually run into each other at least once or twice each year through stormchasing, workshops, or conferences and it never failed that he would find some way to challenge my mental picture of meteorological processes or discuss whether the upcoming spring would be a banner year for wildflowers in the Hill Country. He would also continue to remind me to not give into the meteorological cancer that continues to permeate the organization I work for and would reinforce the fact that I had to be one of the people to keep "meteorology" alive. That sometimes seems impossible but if Al could do it for 34 years, so can I.

You see, Al is the kind of man who would make the impossible happen. In the summer of 1996, Al and I were working graveyard shifts shortly before the Memorial Day weekend started. We were discussing the favorable pattern for chasing coming up but I lamented that I didn't feel I had enough experience to chase on my own, but that didn't matter because I would be without a vehicle that weekend anyway. The second to last mid-shift, Al came up and said that I needed to pack enough clothes for four days and I should bring it with me to work the next day. He had taken it upon himself to contact a fellow chaser and arrange for us to meet up in Amarillo so I could go stormchasing that weekend! The morning of May 24th, Al and I headed up "The Highway to Stormchasing Heaven" as he called it (Highway 287) to Amarillo after our mid shift. As we headed up there, Al informed me that we would be meeting his chase partner and that my ride wouldn't arrive until the following morning. His advice was to keep quiet in the back seat, talk only if asked a question, and most importantly listen. I knew of this person only by name from the various papers and manuscripts Al had me study for the previous two summers. This probably wasn't the best way to be introduced to CAD III but Al took that chance and I am definitely a better forecaster and chaser because of the example of these two men. The arguments discussions they had that afternoon and evening while we chased storms in the Panhandle of Texas probably tought me more about scientific debate and storm morphology than the previous two years combined ever did.

Unfortunately I was not able to remind Al of this experience when I arrived at the party. When I was finally able to take my turn and give him my congratulations on his retirement and thanks for all he has done for me and taught me, I could see in his eyes that the neurons weren't connecting and that I was a stranger to him once again. All I can do is shake my head and wonder why crappy things happen to good people. As much as it hurts to think that the past 15 years might have faded into the sunset of his mind, it also increases my resolve to live the example that Al set forth for me. Zeal is what I have decided is the best one-word description; tireless passion for what I do, continuing to pull science into operational meteorology as he did, but most importantly to share those things and more with others.

To Al Moller; mentor, co-worker, teacher, and friend - thank you for all that you've done and introduced me to. For the mutual friends we have and for the knowledge that you have bestowed on me to share with the next generation of meteorologists. May your retirement be a "long journey into the sunset of life" under many a supercell on the plains.