Every house in my town has a weathervane.

All of the stores and buildings in the library too.

We learned to watch the veins carefully when we were out.

If the arrows started to point towards the west, you went inside.

It didn't matter if you were at home or the park or walking down Main Street.

If a west wind blew, you went inside as fast as you could.

I was working a shift after school at Berger Berger when an early dinner rush started.

It quickly turned into a full-on crowd migration.

I shared a look with Tony, the cook.

We only saw traffic like that when the wind was up and people were ducking inside wherever

they could.

Tony and I both turned to Rosanna.

She was already wiping the chalkboard over the counter-clean.

In big clean letters, she wrote, west wind happy hour, everything 50% off.

The orders came rolling in, so I stopped wiping down tables and went to help Rosanna with

customers.

Everybody was chatty and energized.

It had been more than three months since the last real west wind.

We'd seen little breezes that sent people scurrying for a few minutes, but nothing like

the gale that was building up outside.

A copes of pines that lined one side of the parking lot were all bending in supplication

to the wind, branches bowing and trembling.

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