Back in the day, when I was a little sprout in the OC, my pappy would get me out of bed at the crack of dawn to make me rake leaves after a Santa Ana windstorm. He would say something like, “Up and at ‘em,” which was an old Army saying. Well, I didn’t mind that so...

It never ceases, the weather, that is. First it was the blizzard, then weeks and weeks of rain, followed by a hurricane and mudstorm, which occurs when it rains at the same time as there’s a duststorm, which we had back in June, when everyone was driving around with...