Journal of a Sabbatical

June 1, 2001

so rare

Today's Reading: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella Bird, Summer from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake

Today's Starting Pitcher: Frank Castillo

The Atlantic hurricane season starts today. Oddly, Hallmark has not come out with a line of "have a safe hurricane season" greeting cards. There don't seem to be a whole lot of rituals, traditions, and events associated with such an important day. Shouldn't some big corporate sponsor be running a First Day of Hurricane Season yacht race? The weather reporters on all the major New England TV stations always announce it in solemn tones and reminisce about big storms past. The Rhode Island stations naturally offer their annual Storm Tracker charts so you can track these storms at home (yes, they really do this). That's about it.

I've heard that the hurricane names are reused every six years but names of particularly memorable storms are retired. I'm not sure what criteria they use for retiring a name though. I'm pretty sure Hugo and Andrew are retired but what about Bob? Does a hurricane have to set a record for wind speed or precipitation or widespread destruction to be retired? Is there a Hurricane Hall of Fame?

And nobody announces the beginning of "nor'easter" season. Are northeast storms jealous that tropical storms get names?

Considering that it's the first day of hurricane season, it's really quite a nice day today.

It's also the first day of summer in the H.G.O. Blake universe. I still haven't figured out the logic that Blake used to organize Thoreau's journal entries into seasonal volumes. Summer starts on June 1 and ends July 10. Autumn begins September 21, which makes some sense as the equinox, and ends December 20, which again makes sense as the next day is the winter solstice. Winter begins as you might expect on the winter solstice (Dec. 21) but it ends on February 23. Spring begins on February 24 and ends April 11. I don't know of any astronomical significance to February 23/24 or to April 11. And is there a calendar that treats May and August as separate seasons?

The May gap is sort of filled by an essay called May Days in the Excursions volume of the Riverside edition of Thoreau's works. However, it only treats May 1 through 4. Surely a phenomenon like May in New England deserves a whole volume to itself. May is just so, so, umm ... botanical.

The August gap is covered by an essay called Days and Nights in Concord in that same Excursions volume. That just gives its time period as

[The time of year is August and September.]

and is a much shorter essay. August isn't as separate a season as May and nothing much is changing on a daily basis, so it's easier to take the lack of a day by day chronicle.

It is nice to be able to plunge back into the habit of daily readings from Thoreau's journals in their seasonal arrangement. It's fun to compare the birds, plants, and herptiles he observes with the ones I observe. It kind of gives me a sense that the natural cycles endure despite modern life.

There's none so rare as a day in June. Indeed.

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