This summer of 2010 has been the warmest summer in West Michigan since 1955, according to WOOD TV meteorologist Bill Steffen. Temperatures in the 90s have predominated, with dewpoints in the upper 70s,  and Lake Michigan water temps–in the mid 70s this morning–have been as high as 80 degrees. That’s like swimming in bathwater, and I’m not even referring to the lake–I’m talking about just stepping outdoors.

We made it as high as 93 degrees yesterday, and it looks like hot temperatures are going to hang around for a few more days until a weak cold front modifies things a bit and hopefully brings a few storms to make life interesting. I’m all for hot and sticky under the right circumstances, but a glance at RAOB model soundings for RUC and NAM shows utterly placid conditions. Winds at 500 millibars are doddering along at a geriatric 10-15 knots, and the rest of the atmosphere is keeping pretty much the same pace.

The great storms of May and June are so far past that they seem like ancient history. Who all besides me is ready for a nice, deep trough to come sweeping across our area? Patience, patience, lads and lasses. The fall season is coming. This stifling heat and humidity will soon get stirred up with episodes of cooler air sweeping in from Canada, and the weather machine will kick into gear once again. Then we can all fire up our laptops and Rain-X our windshields for one last blast before the snows fly.

Now is the time of year when waterspouts start putting in an appearance on the Great Lakes. I had largely forgotten about spouts until a few days ago when my friend and fellow weather weenie Mike Kovalchick mentioned them in an email. Bing! A light blinked on in my head: That’s right! Waterspouts!

I’ve never seen a waterspout. But then, until last year about this time with my buddy Kurt Hulst, I’d never made a point of going out after them. Kurt and I busted that day, but maybe this year I’ll get lucky, provided I increase my chances by taking more opportunities to chase spouts.

I have zero experience forecasting waterspouts. Thankfully, there’s a snappy little graph called the Waterspout Nomogram that simplifies the process. Developed by Wade Szilagyi of the Meteorological Service of Canada, the Waterspout Nomogram provides a quick visual aid for determining when certain critical parameters are in place for four different classifications of waterspout: tornadic, upper low, land breeze, and winter.

The tornadic variety is self-explanatory, and any storm chaser with some experience making his or her own forecasts should have a good feel for when that kind of waterspout is likely. Mike favors the 500 mb cold-core, closed low setup, which to my thinking may be a variant of the first in producing low-top supercells. The remaining two, land breeze and winter, seem to involve different dynamics. For all the waterspout categories, one of the constraints is that for spouts to occur, winds at 850 mbs have to be less than 40 knots, something I find particularly interesting in the case of supercell-based waterspouts.

In any event, I’m hoping that this year is my year to finally witness a spout or two. Michigan chasers and weather weenies, it’s time to pay attention to the marine forecasts. The “second season” can include action right along the lakeshore even when nothing’s popping anywhere else. Make sure you bring your shotgun just in case a waterspout gets too close for comfort (written with a wink and a grin).

It’s nights like last night that remind me how much I LOVE to play the saxophone! There’s nothing like a small combo of good players to bring out the best in me. Hopefully I help bring out the best in them, too, but in any case, the guys Friday evening brought me into my Zone.

The gig belonged to drummer Brad Dawson, and the event was his sister’s wedding reception. Brad is a superb all-around musician whom I had a chance to play with briefly before he moved to California well over ten years ago. He was a 17-year-old kid back then, but already he was playing a whole lot of drums and immersing himself deeply in jazz. He’s been back in town for while now, and tonight we finally got a chance to make some decent music together.

As for the rest of the musicians, Bob Van Stee played piano and Matt Herradia laid the bass foundation. Joining me on the front line was a flugelhorn/trumpet player whose name, I regret to say, escapes me. I wish I had his card, because he played very nicely. I  liked his use of space, particularly because my own approach tends to be an aggressive, hard bop style. It’s a pleasure when another player’s concept provides enough contrast from my own that it makes me think and gives me ideas.

The setting was the second floor ballroom in the Saint Cecilia Music Society building in downtown Grand Rapids. It’s a wonderful place for company parties and wedding receptions, and with two Steinway grand pianos on its stage, you’d think it would also be a great room to play in. But the acoustics are such that the sound seems to evaporate immediately after it leaves the musicians’ instruments. I had to really listen in order to hear Bob on the piano, and Matt’s bass came across as an indistinct thumping, though he was only six or seven feet behind me.

For all that, it was a very enjoyable evening playing straight-ahead jazz. Other than Brad, the musicians are guys I haven’t played with before, though I’ve known about Bob VanStee for years. I love that kind of situation. There’s something about jazz that connects people who previously were strangers. You can tell when a person has paid his or her dues, and you sense an unspoken camaraderie, a mutual appreciation. You hear different ideas, new ways of doing things, and you learn from them.

And of course, getting paid is always nice!

Ah, August. In its own way, it’s a lot like February: a month whose respective season of the year has settled in and ripened into predictability. Upper winds are weak and storms are often the pop-up type, providing a quick flash-and-bang along with localized rainfall before fizzling out. Yet on the horizon, like the first cirrus wisps of a fast-moving cold front, you can see change coming.

This morning I awakened to the distant grumble of thunder, and when I opened the drapes, the sky was an odd, fish-flesh paleness with darkness moving in. Oh, joy! Upon hearing me stir, Lisa stepped into the room with a smile and told me that a squall line was approaching. Now, that’s the way I like an August day to begin! I fired up the computer and consulted GR3. It was a skinny line, but the NWS was saying big things about it’s being quite the wind machine. Eight miles up the road, the KGRR station ob reported heavy rain; yet here in Caledonia, we got just a mild spray of precipitation, the lightning called it quits, and the line which had threatened to enter like a lion left like a lamb. Now it’s no longer even detectable on the radar.

More thunder is in the forecast for today, though, and for the next few days, as a weak warm front sloshes back and forth and as air mass storms generate more boundaries to fire up convection. It’ll be a bland but enjoyable show.

While my attitude toward August may seem patronizing, this month is capable of producing an occasional potent surprise. On August 24, 2007, I was sitting in the Hastings library when a line of storms formed just to the west and drifted directly overhead. I had my laptop with me with GR3 running, but my forecasting skills and overall experience were still pretty embryonic, and I dismissed some telltale signs, both radar and visual, because forecast models indicated a straight-line wind event.

The storms matured overhead, blasting Hastings with rain and lightning, and then moved to the east and steered an EF-3 tornado through the town of Potterville. I could have easily intercepted it if I had known what the heck I was doing. There it was, a perfect chase opportunity, gift-wrapped with a large ribbon and dropped smack into my lap, and I was too dumb to untie the bow. Aaargh! Four years later, I could still whap myself alongside the head.

But God showers his kindness even on the ignorant. My first successful chase was eleven years earlier, back in August of, I believe, 1996. I don’t remember the exact date, but I can assure you that in those days, cluelessness was a level of expertise I had yet to attain. However, I had at least learned a few things about storm structure and a few concepts such as shear and CAPE. So when the morning blossomed into an exceptionally sticky day–dewpoints had to have been in the mid-70s–and when I noticed clouds in the afternoon leaning over and curling at the tips, I sensed that something was up.

Around 4:30, I happened to glance out of one of the wrap-around windows at the place where I worked and did a double-take. A wall cloud was forming just a mile or so to my south. Hot dang! I watched it for a bit as it moved eastward, then decided to do something about it.

Leaving work early, I hopped into my little Nissan Sentra and blasted after the storm. I had no laptop, no radar, no weather radio, no experience, and very little knowledge. Instinctively I stayed to the south side of the storm. But as it neared Ionia, I could no longer make out cloud features. I wasn’t even certain that the storm still existed. I hit M-21 and traveled east a ways, then north, smack into the precip core. Yep, the storm was still there. But where was the wall cloud? Was there still a wall cloud?

Emerging from the rain, I headed back west, then south down M-66, effectively circling the supercell. As I approached Ionia from the north, the wall cloud came once again into view. Cool! The storm most definitely still had its teeth.

I tracked behind the storm down M-21, getting right to the rear edge of the circulation. Near Muir, a streak of white condensation shot suddenly out of the woods on the right side of the road half a mile in front of me. Was that a tornado? I wasn’t sure, but it looked mighty promising. Also a bit unnerving. I dropped back and put a little more distance between me and the updraft area.

A while later, somewhere in the open country around St. Johns, I parked and observed as the wall cloud reorganized east of me. While I didn’t realize it at the time, I was watching a classic supercell, as nicely structured and impressive as anything I’ve seen out in the Great Plains. It tightened up, with a nice inflow band feeding into it. Then, to my astonishment, a beautiful, slender white tube materialized underneath it a mile away. Extending fully to the ground, the ghost-like tube translated slowly to my right for a distance of probably no more than half a mile, then dissipated. I had just seen my first tornado!

At that point, the storm weakened. No doubt it was just pulsing, but I dropped it and headed for home. However, I soon discovered that another storm was right on the heels of the first one, making a beeline toward me down M-21.

What were the odds that it, too, would be a supercell? Plenty, of course, but to me at that time they seemed as remote as lightning striking twice in the same place. Nevertheless, something told me that I needed to exercise caution, a hunch that verified as I headed back into Muir. An evil-looking flying saucer meso was approaching the town. Hmmm…maybe it would be prudent of me to drop south.

A couple miles out of the path of the updraft, I parked, got out of the car, and stood on the roadside listening to the thunder grumble and watching as the mesocyclone drifted uneventfully over Muir and vanished off to the northeast. Then I climbed back into my vehicle and headed back to M-21, and west toward home.

I was stoked. I had witnessed my very first tornado! Wow! Thank you, Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you!

It was a milestone in my life so huge that hitting the deer just outside of Ada seemed like practically a non-event. Within a nanosecond, the yearling bounded out of the woods and into my path, driven by a powerful urge to bond with my radiator. Much to both of our chagrin, it succeeded.

But you know, I love a good story, and I recognized all the elements of a great one, a real red-letter day. Not only had I experienced my first successful storm chase, but to top it off, I had also collided with a whitetail and demolished my front end. It doesn’t get much better than that–or at least, it wouldn’t until fourteen years later on May 22, 2010, in South Dakota. That was the ultimate storm chasing experience. But that’s another story.

As for this story, all fun and excitement aside, I had learned a sobering lesson about the dangers of storm chasing. I had come face to face with the dark side of nature–with a force that, beautiful as it was, was also fearful, uncontrollable, and deadly, capable of wreaking havoc on a scale that beggars description. No question about it, deer are dangerous. I enjoy seeing them at a distance, just not up close.

Sorry–I seem to have let an entire week slip by without posting. Many bloggers have a knack for slapping out short, cogent posts in 15 minutes or so, but that’s not a gift of mine. Just about every post takes several hour to write, particularly the ones that include musical exercises. So when I have other things packing my schedule, the prospect of sitting down and creating a post can seem daunting.

That has been the case this week. Could be a streak of just plain old laziness somewhere in the mix, too, but mainly, these past few days have been busy ones. My brothers Pat and Terry arrived for a two-week visit Monday, so family has been a priority. And work still goes on, regardless–gotta make a living.

Today my bros, my sister, Diane, and I headed to Newaygo, rented some kayaks, plopped them into the Muskegon River, and spent the afternoon taking a delightful 6-mile drift with the current. The Muskegon is a surpassingly beautiful stretch of water. I saw three bald eagles soaring overhead, slews of large turtles sunning themselves on logs, several kingfishers, a green heron, and brilliant red cardinal flowers rimming the banks in swampy areas. Altogether it was a most satisfying day.

But of course, as I said, I haven’t had time to write. So I figured that instead, I’d refer you to a couple of links to archived articles. The first is one I wrote one year ago, titled “Will I Ever Become a Good Jazz Improviser?” The second article is for storm chasers by guest poster Andrew Revering of Convective Development, Inc., on how to forecast severe weather during northwest flow.

I hope you enjoy the articles, and will find your journey back to last August’s posts profitable and refreshing. As for me, I’m tired. It has been a long day, it’s now after midnight, and I’m going to bed. G’night!

“The thief comes only to rob and kill and destroy; I have come that [you] may have life, and have it to the full.”–Jesus (John 10:10)

Forty-five years after he lost his younger brother in one of the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes, Pete Johnson still finds it hard to talk about what happened that dreadful evening in northern Indiana. He feels responsible for his brother’s death.

The name Pete Johnson is fictitious. I doubt the man I interviewed yesterday afternoon would mind if I shared his real name or that of his brother, but my conversation with him is so fresh, and my topic so potentially sensitive, that out of care and respect I’m calling him Pete in this post.

Pete was with his family visiting an aunt and uncle in Dunlap, Indiana, when the deadliest tornado of the entire six-state outbreak swirled into view outside the picture window. As his relatives sought shelter indoors, Pete’s parents packed the kids into their car and took off down the road in a frantic attempt to outrun the tornado. They didn’t succeed. Pete’s dad told him that a house hit the car. All Pete remembers is experiencing a blow to the head and then regaining consciousness out in a field, where he’d been blown by the wind. Rescue workers rushed him off to a hospital. It would be some time before he learned that his younger brother, Mark, hadn’t survived.

Mark’s body wasn’t found until a week later, buried under debris in the devastated Sunnyside neighborhood. Pete wants to believe that his brother’s death wasn’t his fault. But still, after all these years, he wonders: What if…?

What if he’d gone straight to the car instead of hiding in the closet, as his aunt had told him to do? Maybe those few extra seconds would have saved his brother’s life. What if his family had ridden out the tornado at at his aunt and uncle’s house, which sustained only minimal damage? What if…?

There’s no satisfying the what-ifs of survivor guilt. You can respond to them with your head, perhaps, but your heart doesn’t buy the answers, not when the wound goes as deep as the loss of a loved one taken by a disaster. There’s seemingly no closure, no tying off of the open ends, no last stone to turn after which the supply of unturned stones finally ceases. At the bottom of it all lies a tyrannical, perpetually haunting lie: “I’m to blame.”

People with survivor guilt suffer–and “suffer” is an appropriate word–from a form of self-imposed penance for not having been the one to perish instead of their loved one. Reliving the incident year after year, they blame themselves for failing to foresee the unforeseeable and stop the unstoppable, for not preventing things over which they had no power. Really, for not being God.

Tornadoes are quirks of the atmosphere, not so much objects as unfathomably powerful processes dependent on an ironically delicate balance of ingredients. Earlier this year I watched one take out the heart of an Illinois town, then disappear into nothingness seconds later. Like lions and Alaskan brown bears, tornadoes are magnificent but also deadly and unpredictable.

As a storm chaser, I’m captivated by the beauty and drama of tornadoes. Yet I’m also keenly aware of their dark side. Who isn’t? The human impact of tornadoes, when it occurs, is seldom conservative and often it’s wholesale. Homes blown to pieces. Trees debarked, debranched, uprooted and thrown hundreds of feet. Vehicles crumpled into balls of metal. Worst of all, bodies mangled and lives ended.

But there’s another kind of damage that can’t be seen. Long after the dead have been buried, long after houses and neighborhoods have been rebuilt, years after people have gotten on with their lives, a sadness lingers. And for many, survivor guilt haunts them. You can build a new home, you can buy a new car, but you can’t replace a loved one, and what do you do with your own wounded heart?

I believe there’s healing for those who struggle with survivor guilt. I don’t mean the sorrow of losing someone close; that will always remain, and it is not necessarily a bad thing. But the sting of guilt which serves no good purpose is exactly the kind of thing Jesus came to put an end to.

Let me be clear, as I share from a Christian perspective, that I have little interest in dogma, any more than Jesus did. The wounds that life can inflict are too real for game-playing. But just as it’s possible to glibly quote the Bible in a way that misses its meaning and heart, it’s equally possible to lightly dismiss the Bible and so miss not only its unnervingly pinpoint assessment of the human condition, but also the power and hope of the gospel for some very practical life issues.

The life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus reveal the heart of a God who desires that we should find true, deeply rooted peace in our souls that flows from the peace we have with him. For those who trust in him, Jesus has resolved the issue of guilt in all its forms, including survivor guilt, with a power and effectiveness that extend beyond the unpredictable events of our lives to a deep and certain, eternal foundation. In his execution on the cross, Jesus took everything that runs counter to the character and will of God and, absorbing it into himself as the eternal scapegoat for mortal mankind, put it to death. Then, in his resurrection, he opened the doorway to a new kind of life that is not subject to the values and limitations of this world.

This is fancy language, but for those who struggle with survivor guilt, the bottom line is simple: God looks at you and says, “Not guilty.” His heart toward you is that you should have life, not death; peace, not self-recrimination. That’s no mere religious proposition–it’s the living, breathing, passionate longing of God for your best, your freest, and your highest.

Given the reality of what God desires for you, the question isn’t whether you could have done something that might have saved your loved one. You’ll never know. That question is a deception from the devil, who loves to torment people with issues that have endless complexities and no resolution. It’s really no question at all–it’s a prison sentence and a distraction from the simplicity of faith. The true, powerful question is whether you’ll stop holding yourself accountable when God himself doesn’t, and stop beating up an innocent person whom he loves very much: yourself.

I realize that what I’ve proposed is easier said than done. I just want to put the possibility before you–the seed of a new way of thinking which, I hope, can make a difference for you. I’m well aware that I haven’t experienced what you’ve experienced. My struggles have been my own. Yet they have been significant in their own right, and in the face of them, Jesus has made me a freer man as only Jesus can. So my words to you are spoken both humbly and frankly, with a longing that you should know peace at last, peace that only the love and grace of God can bring.

One of the titles by which the Scriptures call Jesus is “Prince of Peace.” The peace he offers rests not on life circumstances, but on an interpersonal relationship with him in which the quality of life that resides in him flows to us. It is a life in which guilt, shame, and torment can’t be found. If you belong to him, then the peace which is native to that life is more than his will for you–it is your very birthright as a child of God.

My prayer for you, if you struggle with survivor guilt, is that your birthright will become real to you in a way that frees you from a weight that is not really yours to carry. Bring it to Jesus and trust him with it. You don’t know what to do with it; he does. Letting him do so is a journey he’s eager to make with you if you’re willing to make it with him.

Excuse me while I depart from the normal storm-, jazz-, and saxophone-related material on Stormhorn.com long enough to let off some steam. Sorry, but I’ve had it up to here with email spam, and I feel a profound need to vent if not outright vomit.

I have deleted, I have blocked, I have blacklisted, I have steadily added keywords to my spam filter, and still the unwanted sales messages pour in daily, relentlessly. They are tasteless. They are offensive. They are irritating as hell. And, at least where I’m concerned, they are worse than ineffective–that is, unless the goal of the unscrupulous marketers who send them is to infuriate me. In that, they’re succeeding. As for getting me to buy their products, never in a million years are they going to see a solitary farthing from me for their…

* Cheap Swiss Watches. Hey there, Spammer, why not just stand on a street corner in a rain coat with big interior pockets filled with your trashy fake Rolexes and hawk them to passers-by? That’s the time-honored way.

* Sex Products. Pardon my bluntness, Spammer, but you’re a lot more concerned about the size of my penis than I am, and if I felt otherwise, I wouldn’t come to you for help.  As for “sex pills,” what kind of vast quantities do you think I consume? Judging by the volume of email you send me daily, a dump truck ought to be pulling up to my place once a week and restocking my supply of your cheap Viagra through a coal chute. But if you want the truth, I’m not using your products at all, and I never will.

So stop calling me “User Bob” in your subject lines, because I’m not a user. And while you’re at it, “Friend Bob” doesn’t work with me either. I know you think that using my name and calling me “friend” is the Marketing Magic Button, but here’s a tip: Disingenuousness is never good marketing. I’m not your friend and you’re not my friend. You’re a sleazy, greedy, unprincipled, disrespectful purveyor of sham products that you’re marketing illegally, and if I knew of a way to shut you down, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

* College Degrees and Diplomas. Let me get this straight: I “deserve” a master’s or doctor’s degree and you’re the folks who are going to help me get one in just 6 weeks. Gosh, what a great idea. I’ll consider your offer of a cheap and easy graduate education once you learn how to write and spell on at least a 3rd-grade level.

* Cheap Software. Guess what? I can find my own cheap, not to mention free, software online without your help. I don’t need your cheap software. I don’t trust your cheap software. I don’t want your cheap software. And I’m not going to buy your cheap software. Take your cheap software and stick it in dark, sunless posterior accommodations.

I suppose it goes without saying (though I’m going to say it anyway) that I delete all such messages without opening them as soon as I see them. What amazes me is the sheer audacity of the folks who send them. We’re talking about an entire spam marketing industry that is premised on violating people’s communication boundaries, an industry that is all about peppering their unwilling database with an endless supply of unwanted sales messages. It’s the good old shotgun approach: If you shoot enough pellets, a few are bound to find their mark, and hang whoever else they hit.

The approach must work; otherwise, such an industry wouldn’t exist. But of course, spamming is illegal, and I marvel at the willful dehumanization that lies behind it. Spam filters are the modern counterpart of a “No Solicitors” sign to a vacuum cleaner salesman. In developing technology that enables them to slide over, under, and around those filters, spammers are saying, in effect, “Nuts to your sign, nuts to your closed door, and nuts to you. I’m coming in anyway!”

A Hoover salesman who tried to sneak in through a side window would deserve to have a shotgun stuffed in his face. Unfortunately, no virtual shotgun presently exists that can inspire spammers with a sudden ethical awakening.

Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if one did? Wouldn’t it be extraordinarily cool if someone would develop a spam filter that not only deleted the most sophisticated forms of spam, but that could also, at the user’s discretion, trace its way back to the sender and wipe out their entire database? Just a thought.

Hmmm…

Hey, there, Scouts, if one of you is looking for a project for your Hacking Merit Badge, have I got a fantastic idea for you!

Even as my book “The Giant Steps Scratch Pad” nears completion–it now awaits only the cover, which is being designed by a graphic designer friend of mine–my other, more ambitious project is also moving along. That would be my book on the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes.

With important (to me, at least) information in my hands and a key interview now completed, the latest delay has been purely my own making. But it’s about to end. This afternoon I head down to Elkhart, Indiana, to interview my first two tornado survivors, one a retired police officer and the other an emergency worker who helped with rescue operations at the Midway Trailer Court.

This is exactly the boot in the butt I need to get myself going on the next phase of the book: firsthand accounts of tornado survivors. In the months to come, I anticipate making trips to northern Indiana and southeast Michigan, not to mention places in my hometown area of Grand Rapids, in order to get people’s stories straight from the sources.

If anyone reading this post was directly involved in the tornadoes (that is, you got hit by one of the tornadoes or otherwise witnessed a tornado in action) or knows of someone who was whom you think I might want to interview, please leave a comment on this post or else contact me.

Also, if you know of photographs of the actual storms that aren’t already in common circulation, I’d be keenly interested in seeing them. I’m not talking about damage photos, nor am I talking about photos such as the twin funnels hitting Midway that are accessible online. Rather, I’m thinking of old, long-forgotten photographs that might be sitting in your dresser drawer that you or your Uncle Pete snapped with the old Brownie camera. That kind of picture.

This next part will take time to complete, but it should be easier overall than the first part, particularly the second chapter. More updates will follow when I have news that’s worth sharing.

It’s July 4, Independence Day. Happy Birthday, America! For all the problems that face you, you’re still the best in so many, many ways. One of those ways, which may seem trite to anyone but a storm chaser, is your spring weather, which draws chasers like a powerful lodestone not only from the all over the country, but also from the four corners of the world.

This has been an incredible spring stormwise, but its zenith appears to have finally passed for everywhere but the northern plains. And right now, even those don’t look particularly promising. That’s okay. I think that even the most hardcore chasers have gotten their fill this year and are pleased to set aside their laptops and break out their barbecue grills.

Now is the time for Great Lakes chasers to set their sights on the kind of weather our region specializes in, which is to say, pop-up thunderstorms and squall lines. The former are pretty and entertaining. The latter can be particularly dramatic when viewed from the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, sweeping in across the water like immense, dark frowns on the edge of a cold front. If you enjoy lightning photography, the lakeshore is a splendid place to get dramatic and unobstructed shots. Not that I can speak with great authority, since so far my own lightning pictures haven’t been all that spectacular. But that’s the fault of the photographer, not the storms.

The images on this page are from previous years. So far this year I’ve been occupied mainly with supercells and tornadoes, but I’m ready to make the shift to more garden variety storms, which may not pack the same adrenaline punch but lack for nothing in beauty and drama.

July 4th is a date that cold fronts seem to write into their planners. I’ve seen a good number of fireworks displays in West Michigan get trounced by a glowering arcus cloud moving in over the festivities. But tonight looks promising for Independence Day events. Storms are on the way, but they should hold off till well after the party’s over.  That means we’ll get two shows–the traditional pyrotechnics with all the boom, pop, and glittering, multicolored flowers filling the sky; and later, an electrical extravaganza, courtesy of a weak cold front. A Fourth of July double-header: what could be finer than that?

Yesterday I made my first dollar ever as a street musician. It wasn’t a conscious effort. I’ve never busked in my life, and if I were to take up busking as a serious practice, I wouldn’t choose the place I was at. For that matter, the term “street musician” doesn’t at all capture the essence of either my location or my activity.

I was out on the Paul Henry Thornapple Trail in Middleville, one of my favorite outdoor spots to practice my saxophone. The Paul Henry is an old railroad bed that has been converted to a paved hiking trail. It winds through an area of considerable natural beauty, blessed with an impressive diversity of habitats and a commensurately large variety of wild birds.  Along the south side of the trail, the lovely Thornapple River flows serenely by. To the north, an ancient millpond serves as a haven for sandhill cranes, great blue herons, mute swans, and other waterfowl. Red-headed woodpeckers flit among the trees, and farther down, where the open marsh grades into a hardwood swamp, cardinal flowers punctuate the shade-dappled trailside with exclamations of crimson.

I love to take my sax out to the trail, out to the bridge over the short channel connecting the Thornapple River to the millpond, and practice my horn. I was doing so yesterday evening, hammering out some material in the keys of Eb and F#, when a red-headed woodpecker flew up and perched on the trunk of a small tree not fifteen feet away. It was a striking bird, with black wings and upper body, a white breast, and a shocking red head–a sight rarely seen in these parts but one you can’t miss when it’s in front of you. However, not being a seasoned bird watcher, I wasn’t quite certain it was a woodpecker.

So when an elderly couple came strolling along the trail, I addressed them. “Did you see the bird that flew into that tree?” I asked. “It’s got a bright red head. I think it’s a red-headed woodpecker.  Do you know your birds? Maybe you can tell me.”

The man said no, he didn’t know what kind of bird it was, but he wanted to give me something. He unfolded a dollar bill that he had in his hand and handed it to me. “We’ve been listening to you down the trail,” he said with a smile.

I laughed and accepted the dollar bill from him. “Thanks!” I replied. “I think I’ll frame it. That’s the first dollar I’ve ever made as a busker–and I’m not even busking!”

The three of us talked for a while about the woodpeckers, and music, and the beauty of the trail. Then the couple went their way and I pocketed the dollar and returned to my practicing.

One of the rewards of practicing outdoors is the variety. You never know what you’ll see or whom you’ll meet.

And with that thought, it’s time to end this post and go practice my horn. See you in July.