If you read this column now and then, you have probably figured out I’m sort of obsessed with weather. But, aren’t we all, in at least a vague way?
Isn’t the weather the first thing you look outside for in the morning? The last thing you check for when you turn off the TV and go to bed?
Our region has just bid goodbye to the best weatherman we’ve known: Robin Reed. Yes, even the handsome, easy-going Robin Reed has reached the age where he wants nothing more than to retire. I will miss him, even though he’s served as news anchor, not weather guy, for the past couple of years.
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by weather.
And, I find it rather odd that, right now, when most of the country is braving and fighting extremely bad weather – blizzards, tornados, flash floods and the like – we are sitting pretty up here in the Highlands. I think we can thank the mountains for that.
We are not shoveling five feet of snow to find our cars. And, we wouldn’t need our cars anyway, right now, if we were blanketed by five feet of snow, or cowering from a tornado. I often wonder about folks I see stranded on a scary, snow-ravaged highway, dangerously near a jackknifed tractor trailer or an overturned tour bus.
Tour bus? Who takes a tour bus anywhere during weather like the West and Midwest has been facing night after night? The weather has become the lead news story on every major network for at least a week. Not the time for a trip, which could easily turn into a “Magical Misery Tour.”
But, back to our beloved Robin Reed.
My favorite Robin anecdote concerns the night in March 1993 when he predicted the Highlands could look for “a dusting” of snow. We awakened to what became known as “The Blizzard of ’93.”
I think we got about three feet, maybe more in some places. I especially remember it because I was supposed to be moving from Millboro to Healing Springs that day. So much for that! I wasn’t “moving” anywhere for a week or 10 days.
The “dusting” incident doesn’t just remain in the back of my mind. It also occupied a small portion of Robin Reed’s.
Every weeknight last week, Channel 7 treated us to a retrospective about Robin. There he was in the early days: One of the best-looking weathermen in America, probably. There he was now, a distinguished, silver-haired gentleman reporting the news.
There were a lot of laughs associated with the Robin Retrospective. Some of them involved Robin laughing at himself. And it was he who brought up the “dusting” incident. I laughed along with Robin and all his Channel 7 buddies. I was glad I wasn’t the only one who remembered it.
As Robin Reed’s last bit of air time came on Friday night, he helped light the Christmas tree in the downtown Roanoke Market. And they gave him the key to the city.
Robin Reed didn’t really need the key to the city; he already had the key to our hearts.
Thanks for everything through the years, Robin. We had to love you!
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