Jameson Gregg
PUBLICATION: Dahlonega Nugget, The (GA)

SECTION: Opinions, page 5A
DATE: March 5, 2014

It’s been a harsh winter in Dahlonega. The polar vortex and wintry mixes.

Schools closed. My pipes froze. We’re a city of traffic offenders with our slip-and-slide fender benders. I got to pondering global warming. Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for touting it. The Nobel folks wouldn’t have chosen him if he was wrong, would they?

About the time you suspect there may be some truth to it, we get hammered by the coldest winter of the century. What is one to believe?

This is not small ball, either. In what shape shall we leave the planet for our descendants? What will be our legacy? The Warmers trot out their statistics and the Anti-Warmers trot out theirs. It could be the biggest issue of our era…or maybe not.

Confusion abounds. My mind can’t stop replaying TV images of thawing icebergs crumbling into the sea. Our earth must be warming, right?

Yet, I chopped so much wood for the fireplace this winter I got a lumberjack version of tennis elbow.

Too big a contradiction. A downright paradox. What is an average Joe like me to think? My anxiety grew chronic, heading toward neurotic. Too much rolling around inside my head. I had to have answers. During the height of a February snowstorm, I called my friend, the Professor, who knows a little about a lot.

I explained my angst and queried, “How can they claim global warming when we’re freezing our keisters off?”

“Did you call to grumble about the weather?”

“No. This is much bigger. I’m talking worldwide trends.”

I heard him puff his pipe before answering. “You’re fretting over the yin and yang of life. The zig and the zag.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Recall the words of Robert Frost: ‘Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.’ In the long run, I’m not sure upon which I would place my money.”

“What about Al Gore and the Nobel Prize and melting icebergs?”

“If one measures time spanning eons, it’s warm today, perhaps cold tomorrow. Now if you wish to discuss interplanetary climate change-”

“Professor, please. I’m searching for practical implications.”

“Okay. I’m afraid Al Gore would have us burn our thermal underwear not unlike women burning their bras in the sixties. However..”

“However what?”

“Don’t burn your thermals just yet, my friend, and call me in August when it’s hotter than blazes. I will likely opine quite the opposite.”

Jameson Gregg is a local humorist and author of the soon-to-be-published Luck Be a Chicken. He can be reached by email at info @jamesongregg.com.