Number Nine on the Beaufort Scale
By Emery C. Walters
You know how I got interested in the weather? My father was a sailor, my grandfather was a submariner, and my last name is Beaufort. Of course, both my ancestors were nicknamed Windy, but my first name is Gale, so yeah, no need to extrapolate on that. My mother had had a lot of miscarriages, and I had older siblings, so I was technically number nine. I didn’t like being raised in such a big family. We weren’t always very nice to each other. Some of these siblings were halves or steps, and I wasn’t sure I even cared who was which for a long time. Dad got mean in his old age. Both he and his own father drank a lot and several of my siblings did, also. Until my mother went to Al-Anon, our home was pure hell. I was already fourteen years
