History of the weather guy: Volume one

So I was watching "America's Funniest Home Videos" last night (the one where the dad gets hit in the nuts by a baseball bat), when I realized, hey, I've seen this episode before. Bypassing the endlessly-looped Oscar special on the student network, I sought the unique brand of nerd solace that only the History Channel can provide. Imagine my shock to find, rather than the Wehrmacht in action, a two-hour special about the history of the weather column at Princeton!

Scurrying to retrieve a fresh tape for my Betamax, I managed to record a good deal of this program. So, rather than filling this space with unnecessary details about this weekend's calm, dry and pleasant weather (cool mornings and pleasant afternoon highs in the mid-60s don't provide much raw material), I'd like to take this opportunity to pay my respects to the proud line of pilgrim Weather Guys before me. Dateline:

1767: The student weatherman of the "Prince-towne Weekly Wyfe-swapper" (an early forerunner of this publication) forecasts a wintry day to be cold enough to "rayse the hayres on Aaron Burr's buttocks," only to be challenged to a duel by the irascible future-VP. Felled in single combat, this anonymous weather pioneer today reposes in the Tomb of the Unknown Meteorologist deep beneath West College.

1846: Former Weather Guy Ezekiel Smather (c/o 1834) succumbs to typhoid fever just nine miles short of Fort Bridger after overhunting the buffalo in this area.

1854: In response to contentious debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, 'Prince' weatherman Thurston Howell II proposed that sectarian conflicts be resolved by breakdance battles between the so-called "crews" of the respective states; in time, this would become known as the You Got Served Compromise. Howell was later mercilessly caned by Rep. Preston Brooks (D-S.C.) on the steps of Nassau Hall for this alleged slight of Southern honor. (Interestingly, due to the invention of the electric boogaloo by Eli Whitney in 1848, breakin' could take place 75 times faster than with earlier manual boogaloos.)

1878: At Weather Guy Zachary Frapping's insistence, The Daily Princetonian becomes one of the country's first college newspapers to be printed on 100 percent dephlogisticated paper.

1892-1895: Angered by repeated incidents of improper appendix citation, Grover Cleveland engages in anti-Weather Guy pamphleteering on two nonconsecutive occasions.

Monday: the thrilling 20th century!