Weather Observer in Berea

I can't remember the exact time, it should be about the end of my first semester of my freshman year, I got another part time job as a weather observer.

I needed to work at 5PM every day outside the science building (that was why I usually ate at 4:30 for my dinner, or sometimes 5:15PM - in order to suit my study or work schedule ).

I collected the rain/snow water, measured and recorded the quantity, collected the humidity reading from the machine.

I registered all the required figures, then back to the Physics Lab, I filled in the daily record in a register, then key-in the number in a special machine, then I connected the machine with the telephone and dialled the phone no of the county observatory center.

For the normal day, I could finish all the work within 10 minutes or so ( not including my walking time around the campus :). For weekend, since I needed to change the weekly record, it took additional few minutes; but for month-end, there were several procedures, which required me to prepare a monthly report. I needed to put the report into a mailing bag and I brought it to CPO to mail.

Though I had different labor assignments during my stay in Berea, I kept this job until my graduation, I was punctual and been there a responsible weather observer every day.

Whenever I was out of town, I needed to inform Dr.P ( my boss in this job) in advance, so that he could find the replacement to take over the task.

The best thing was that, it was easy, I could entitle to receive one hour wage every day, the less attrative thing was I needed to work every day, because of my duty, I usually cancelled my trip to the other places, except I knew that I could make the time to come back to work.

I liked to work as a weather observer and I enjoyed the beautiful weather in Berea, especially in spring time - we did not have long time cold weather in winter, we just had temporairty cold weather once in a while.

For winter time, especially it was snowing, task could be very difficult - imagined getting the snow water outside while my hands were freezing in the field.

I had encountered several bad weather times - the most difficult time was the snow turned into ice, and it was very slippy everywhere. Furthermore, when the time the snow started to melt - the temperatures became even lower!!!

But after the duty, back to indoor, it was totally another world, we could wear short sleeves T-shirt with the heater, and a beautiful snow view outside the window.

Normally, in winter time, we usually had 20-30 F in winter time, only few times, the temperatures went even lower. Therefore, I always enjoyed the time in my room at night time, even though it was very cold outside.

No matter what, this was my duty - I work completely independently and be responsible of this task, Dr. P trusted me very much and would not monitored my work, I had the access of the building and the Lab all the time as I kept the keys for the assignment.

I was the weather observer in Berea College - I enjoyed this assignment very much.