By Fleet Lentz 

The Mercedes Enterprise 

It got down to fifty five Fahrenheit last night. It was fifty nine when I woke up this morning. It was definitely jacket weather outside. 

I know I give lots of weather words, but last night and today seem unusually chilly. Today rates a mention. 

Something is going on , otherwise I would not have see two big flocks of Canadian geese on my morning drive around looking for Magpies, my totem birds. 

It is mid sixties right now and forecast to be not so hot today. Doors and screens are open. 

I watch the national weather also as my wife is flying over to Orlando today. 

I noted that Dallas and Los Angeles reaches one hundred F today, and am asking myself what is going on. I trust birds, like Canadian geese ,to show me what is going on. I will stick with them. They ‘feel weather before it changes, unlike humanoids who feel it later after it is on them. 

Does this portend an earlier and colder autumn and winter? I don’t know but hope to be here to see. 

Always reminds me of my time in Merecedes when fifty degrees during s ‘norther ‘ felt like freezing weather and in Viet Nam and Thailand it meant every body wore field jackets and slept under army blankets at night. 

So, we wait and watch and see what the weather will do and adjust accordingly. 

Different matter: I learned this morning that 

“Tha’ Duke” had passed way recently. I never met the man but he apparently was a favored writer for the mighty Enterprise and I considered him a team mate. We both got our starts at the paper under Robert Hinds, RI 

I will miss his column. The man liked to live and liked to write and he had quite a following from his Enterprise articles.I will miss seeing “Tha Duke ‘in the paper. 

So I will temper further articles mentioning weather here, but will probably say something when we get our first snow. 

And people like “Tha Duke “do not come along every day.He was at the very least, unusual,in the best way. 

For now, que le vaya bien eh? And stay warm… summer is almost gone, at least up here. 

And watch the birds closely if you want to know what the weather will be like. 

Lentz