Throughout 
his 
long 
and 
illustrious career in meteorology, 
not everything went to plan for 
Perry Samson. 
In fact, he never planned on 
becoming a meteorologist. He had 
every intention of becoming a rock 
star. 
“But they expect you to have 
some talent,” Samson said. “Which 
I thought was unfair.”
And he certainly didn’t plan 
on 
becoming 
a 
professor 
of 
atmospheric 
sciences 
at 
the 
University of Michigan, he only 
decided to interview because he was 
trying to be cheap.
“I applied for the job in Ann Arbor 
literally hoping, not that I would get 
hired because I didn’t think that that 
would happen,” Samson said. “... but 
that they would pay for my room as I 
drove from Albany to Madison … I’m 
a cheap guy.”
And he absolutely didn’t plan 
on starting a weather site — The 
Weather 
Underground 
— 
that 
receives tens of millions of visits 
every month. Rather, it began as a 
simple attempt to look intelligent in 
front of his students by being able 
to tell them what the weather was 
going to be each day. 

“He came in one day and he said, 
… ‘I want you guys to make me look 
smart,’” Frank Marsik, associate 
research scientist and lecturer in 
the College of Engineering, said. “‘I 
need to know what the weather’s 
going to be that day. Nothing’s more 
embarrassing for a meteorology 
professor to go into class, have 
students ask him and you not 
know.’”
But regardless of what his initial 
plan was, he did all of these things, 
from never-was-rockstar to one 
of meteorology’s most celebrated 
thinkers and the University’s most 
esteemed professors.
He wasn’t supposed to. His 
success was not a product of some 
greater design. He simply took 
what was in front of him at every 
step of his life, looked for the most 
logical path forward and turned 
opportunities that he couldn’t have 
predicted into much more than they 
should have been. 
That’s part of the reason Samson 
has never fit neatly into a concrete 
professional description. Because 
for Samson, there’s very little that 
he isn’t. 
“He’s just Perry. He’s an enigma,” 
Rackham student Kaleb Clover told 
The Michigan Daily.
And 
while 
any 
description 
would be largely inadequate in fully 
capturing the enigmatic Samson, it’s 

worth a shot:
Perry Samson is a tornado-
chasing, 
major 
weather-
conglomerate 
co-founding, 
educational 
tool 
building, 
emmy-winning, 
meteorological-
trailblazing, 
entrepreneurial 
professor of atmospheric sciences 
with a specialty in air quality. He’s 
spent the past four decades teaching 
at the University; every Monday, 
Wednesday and Friday, he could be 
found standing at a lectern, teaching 
Climate 102: Extreme Weather, to 
students like me, who had minimal 
interest in the weather and an even 
more minimal intent of becoming 
meteorologists.
“If you ask about the story of 
Perry Samson, it’s not the story of 
a great forecaster, it’s not even the 
story of a tornado chaser … Perry’s 
is the story of innovation,” Tim 
Keebler, Ph.D. student, and a former 
GSI for Samson, said. 
With so much that could be 
mentioned, 
it’s 
impossible 
to 
define Samson by just one feat 
that he’s accomplished. Heck, it 
took me hundreds of minutes of 
interviews before someone even 
thought it worth mentioning that a 
documentary made about a trip he 
led won an Emmy. Yet, everyone 
brought up Climate 102 right away.

Wednesday, November 30, 2022 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
S T A T E M E N T

CHARLIE PAPPALARDO
Statement Columnist 

Read more at MichiganDaily.com
RILEY NIEBOER/Daily

‘Do something:’ On the one-year anniversary of the 
Oxford High School shooting

Content Warning: Descriptions of 
gun violence.
It’s hard to be the picture of 
resiliency 
when 
you’ve 
been 
knocked down and can’t get back 
up. 
I wish people would realize 
they’re 
walking 
over 
me, 
continually pushing me down. But 
I also don’t. The people that step 
on me have their own places to be, 
their own lives to live. I don’t want 
them to burden themselves with 
mine. I don’t want anyone to lay 
down beside me. But it still hurts. 
I feel the heels of their shoes press 
into the bruises that have made 
homes on my skin — everything 
lingers. 
I don’t know. Maybe I want 
someone to look down. Maybe I 
want someone to lay beside me.
What I do know is that I’m 
scared a lot. I don’t think I’ll ever 
not be afraid again.
I put my jacket over my sister’s 
shoulders as she cries. I hold my 
sister so tightly I fear I might crack 
her ribs. I smile when someone asks 
where I’m from.
“Oxford,” I say, bracing for 
impact.
They 
smile. 
They 
don’t 
remember. That is almost worse.
Things haven’t changed that 
much. For me, they’ll never be the 
same.
***
A year ago today there was a 
shooting at Oxford High School. 
Four 
students 
died: 
Madisyn 
Baldwin, Hana St. Juliana, Justin 
Shilling and Tate Myre. Many more 
were injured, now fully recovered. 

But even more will never be the 
same.
I am not a survivor myself, but 
my little sister, Abbey, was there 
that day. She crawled out of a 
window and ran down the street. 
I was in Mason Hall during those 
minutes my sister made her escape. 
I do not try to represent or 
describe 
the 
totality 
of 
the 
experiences that came after this 
event. I simply seek to speak on my 
own.
***
The changes that happened after 
aren’t big. They aren’t noticeable 
unless you’re looking for them. 
They’re clear when Abbey’s eyes 
get lost in space, and I can tell she’s 
somewhere far away. They’re clear 
when I play certain songs, and 
we cry without speaking. They’re 
little changes in her face I can’t 
pick out. She looks older. I think it’s 
something in her eyes.
I look in the mirror sometimes 
and try to pick out the differences 
in my own face. Maybe I look 
different too. Do I look older? Is 
there something in my eyes?
But maybe I don’t. Because 
sometimes I look at Abbey, and 
she looks just like she used to. 
When we’re screaming a song in 
our parent’s truck. When she’s 
watching TV with my older sister. 
When I watch her play with our 
dogs in the yard.
Those moments remind me 
how little everything changed. 
Is the look in my sister’s eye all 
that’s changed because of this 
tragedy? Is that all that changes 
after something like this happens 
to someone? Nothing tangible, 
nothing monumental, nothing that 
will protect other children and 
other parents and other families 

from this kind of pain. From this 
kind of change.
Just this. The way my sister 
cries and shakes. The way I look 
in the mirror and pick apart my 
face, hoping for some change, 
because 
something, 
anything 
ought to change as a result of what 
happened in my hometown 365 
days ago today.
It’s always the pain. That’s all I 
can see.
***
At the end of the piece I wrote 
for “The Oxford Edition,” I called 
upon anyone reading to look at my 
community, to see it. Actually, I 
believe I didn’t “call,” I “begged.”
My friends read the article, my 
hometown did. For a few months 
afterward when I met someone 
new, and I said my name, they 
sometimes knew who I was, they 
attached my name with the piece. 
But that was back when people 
froze when I said where I was 
from. They looked. They saw. 
They listened to my story, to my 
sister’s story, to stories from those 
on campus and from those back in 
Oxford. I thanked them. It takes a 
lot of time and a lot of effort to do 
that — to look, to see, to listen so 
earnestly.
But now, a year later, they don’t 
remember. And I don’t blame them.
There have been 717 mass 
shootings in the U.S. this year. I 
can’t remember 717 towns. I can’t 
remember that many names. This 
overwhelming, intense pain that 
has burdened my family, my town 
for months now, plagues thousands 
of other souls in this country.
Because my little sister shakes 
and cries when she hears fireworks. 
Because my little sister can’t go to 
school without the therapy dogs 

that they provide. Because I can’t 
listen to certain songs. Because my 
dad can’t think about it for too long 
because he’ll just freeze, and the 
world will keep moving without 
him. Because my entire life, my 
family’s life, feels like trying to push 
a run-down car uphill. Constant 
effort, just to keep moving, and 
when we turn around, we realize 
we haven’t even made it that far.
And I didn’t even lose someone. 
Think 
about 
that. 
717 
mass 
shootings. Thousands of families, 
thousands of people. That’s a lot 
of names that you, I, we can’t 
remember.
That’s a lot of names that deserve 
to be remembered.
***
When it happened, my older 
sister and I fled Ann Arbor. I sat 
in the passenger seat as she drove, 
as she pleaded with me not to talk 
about it, because she couldn’t drive 
and dry-heave at the same time. 
I pleaded with my mind to stop 
racing, my arms to stop aching for 
my little sister.
But now it’s nearly a year later, 
and I’m driving home again. Just 
like that day, I’m driving to see my 
younger sister. My hands grip the 
steering wheel, and I see a Twitter 
notification. 
Another 
headline 
of a school facing another threat 
of a mass-shooting. I don’t dig 
too deeply for the details, I can’t 
without freaking out. I think my 
Twitter notifications have listened 
to my search history. It may not 
currently be the worst day of my 
life anymore, but I think, with a 
growing anger, that somewhere out 
there, it is somebody’s.
I glance at the passenger seat and 
think about how, two weeks ago, I 
was holding back a panic attack like 

vomit. I remember locking every 
muscle in my body so I wouldn’t 
move, so I wouldn’t show anyone 
that I was on the verge of tears, of 
breaking down. All because we had 
tumbled over a particularly nasty 
bit of roadkill.
I wondered if this will be what 
the rest of my life is like. Crying 
over roadkill, fake guns, movies 
I used to love, Evan Peters in 
American Horror Story, sirens, 
book covers, certain names, the 
way no one understands and yet too 
many people understand and how 
none of us should, my little sister’s 
backpack, my old chemistry teacher, 
therapy dogs, the image of my little 
sister bleeding out on the floor of 
her high school and whispering 
my name, and I don’t even know 
what’s happening and someone is 
stepping over her, the classrooms 
in Mason Hall, flags at half-mast, 
calls from unknown numbers, 
hospitals, Grey’s Anatomy season 
six episode 24, my little sister’s 16th 
birthday, the idea of my tears falling 
down my face and the shade of the 
frost on the grass and how hard the 
ground would be if I had to bury my 
little sister.
And just like that I’m back in it. 
Because what are just nightmares 
to make me sob are real to some 
people. To so many people. I pound 
my fist into the steering wheel as I 
pull into my driveway, pressing my 
forehead against the cool glass so I 
can feel something other than this. 
And then I realize that this, this is 
nothing. This is getting off easy.
I put each hand on its opposite 
shoulder and hold myself close. I 
don’t want to go inside like this and 
scare my sister. I’d rather bear this 
burden alone. But I know I am not. 
My family is just inside, bearing 

this burden. 717 new communities 
in America are out there, bearing 
this burden, just from this year 
alone.
A little under a year ago I begged 
people to look at my community. 
Now, I’m afraid I’m going to beg 
people again.
Please do something. Check in on 
your friends. Have conversations 
about mental health, about gun 
control with your families, friends. I 
said in my previous Oxford Edition 
piece that the months following 
the event felt like I was stuck in 
the moment of that day — Nov. 30. 
Others may walk on. Others’ worlds 
may change. But mine has not. 
Mine won’t. I refuse to let it.
Not until you see. Not until we 
see. Not until something comes out 
of this. This pain, this unending, 
burning pain that is somehow 
overwhelming and all-consuming 
and still doesn’t compare to that of 
those who lost people exactly one 
year ago, of those who lose people 
to gun violence every single day.
I will remain frozen. I will 
remain in that moment of horror, a 
piece of me will remain in the worst 
day of my life until I feel like the 
world has paid for what it has done 
to me. To my older sister, to my 
father, to my mother. To my little, 
baby sister, who I am fortunate 
to spend yet another day with. To 
Tate. To Hana. To Madisyn. To 
Justin. To Oxford.
Please, I’m begging you. Take a 
piece of yourself, your mouth, your 
hand, your heart and hold it out. 
Promise it to me, to people like me, 
to people in worse positions than 
me. And then do something with it. 
Be a part of the reason that the only 
thing that comes out of this tragedy 
isn’t pain.

RILEY HODDER
Statement Correspondent 

‘On the cutting edge:’ Professor Perry 
Samson through the lens of Climate 102

Photo courtesy of Paige Hodder
Riley Hodder (left) and Abbey Hodder (right) in front of Oxford High School Saturday, November 26.

Doctor Perry Samson teaches “Extreme Weather” in an Angel Hall auditorium Monday, November 28. 

