Times Like These, by Mike Andrews

If you are enjoying this mild Oklahoma summer then just let me say, "You're welcome."

This is my first full summer in the Sooner state. I caught the tail end of last summer, a season when seven-day forecasts had 21 digits:

Mon/Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri/Sat/Sun

102/101/105/103/103/104/100

This summer, on the other hand, has been much more in the 80s. I've heard several mature Okies say this is the rainiest summer they ever remember, a sort of "Lack of Dust Bowl."

This summer, on the other hand, has been much more in the 80s. I've heard several mature Okies say this is the rainiest summer they ever remember, a sort of "Lack of Dust Bowl."

I'm no farmer, but those cotton plants look nice and green. This year, reservoirs across Western Oklahoma are filling while crops keep growing

So I, in the best tradition of male egos, am here to take full credit for a mild, subtropical June and August. July did get a little warm. I apologize. I was on vacation.

I have more proof of my effect on the weather. When I came here in August, the state began its longest tornado drought on record. A couple of measly F0 and F1 twisters have broken that string, but nothing that has endangered the life or limb of livestock, much less real human beings.

When the atmosphere gets mean, they call it El Nino. Perhaps we could call this roll-down-your windows weather trend "El Miko."

As my wife and my cat can tell you, I am a weather fanatic. Growing up in Georgia, whenever a hurricane or tropical storm entered the Gulf of Mexico, I tried to cheer it toward the Florida panhandle, hoping it would follow the Chattahoochee River north to my hometown of Columbus.

I know I sound silly saying I "wished" a storm toward my home. We all know that willing things to happen only works in sports, when a serious fan's intensity gives a field goal that last yard of air or gets that free throw through the hoop. It is a little known fact that most sports failures (most notably the Mookie Wilson ground ball between Bill Buckner's legs that lost the Red Sox the 1986 World Series) were caused by wives across New England simultaneously asking their husbands to take out the garbage.

I got my belated hurricane wish in 1995 when Hurricane Opal rode through Columbus, but unfortunately I had moved away. Opal did damage in the Smoky Mountains, where I would one day live. But it had no effect in east Georgia, where I lived at the time.

In 1988, Oklahoma had a similar experience when Hurricane Gilbert sped up from Texas, dumping 3.2 inches in Altus and flooding many parts of the state. I was nowhere near Oklahoma at the time. Coincidence? I think not.

So maybe this is a sort of curse for a guy who fantasizes about living through a hurricane or seeing a tornado. I am living storm repellent. Perhaps I could rent myself out to the insurance industry. Instead of paying out billions in damage claims, Allstate could pay me $10,000 to lounge on tropical beaches while otherwise killer storms limp harmlessly out into the North Atlantic.

In the meantime, all I can do is watch The Weather Channel (Motto: We Love Oklahoma, or at least we did until Mike Andrews moved there) and root for something more exciting than a partly cloudy, 85-degree August afternoon.