Someday, if we're lucky, another person of his character will come along. But don't hold your breath. John Days show up about once every century – just a few years more than this one graced the Earth.

It would be true, although neither clever nor original, to say he had his head in the clouds. He wasn't known as “Cloudman” for nothing.

To Day, things were always looking up, because that's what he always did. He thought if you kept your eyes on the skies, you would always have a prize.

He took thousands upon thousands of photographs of every cloud type imaginable. Wherever he was, and he had traveled the globe, he aimed his lenses skyward. In the 1930s, he flew the Pacific as a meteorologist for fledgling Pan Am World Airways, and in World War II, he helped route planes for the U.S. military.

One of his photos, of a cumulus humilis, was selected to be on a U.S. postage stamp in 2004. Like many of his shots, which have appeared in galleries and museums around the world, the picture was as much a work of art as a scientific sample.

Day knew clouds, scientifically and aesthetically, probably as well as anyone on the planet. He was a meteorologist and had a Ph.D. in cloud physics. He wrote books about clouds and the atmosphere. He put together the Sky Watcher's Cloud Chart, which adorns classrooms and homes around the country.

But right up until days before he died – June 21 at age 95 – Day's head was into much, much more than clouds. Take away his contributions to the study of the sky, and he would still have been a remarkable man.

“John Day, to me, represented a kind of Benjamin Franklin figure,” said Jack Borden, a fellow sky worshipper. “There never was a more interesting person.”

That, I can second. I spoke with him just weeks before he died. I was working on a story about sunsets (page E1 today), and I figured if there were anyone who knew what went into a good one, it would be Day.

I hadn't spoken with him for several years, so I was a little leery of what I would get from a 95-year-old. Within seconds, it was clear he not only had all his marbles, he had an entire quarry's worth. He launched into a detailed technical discussion of light refracting through water droplets, cloud types and height. And he made it all easily understandable. I was a bit relieved, but not surprised.

He was as sharp as the day I met him and his wife, Mary, in their home in McMinnville, Ore., back in January 2001, when he was a mere 87. They were married 70 years.

He was brilliant, gracious and down-to-earth. He was nearly twice my age, but it quickly became clear I would need to summon all of my mental energy to come close to keeping up with him.

He was teaching a meteorology class (he taught physics for decades, too) that night at Linfield College in McMinnville, and he asked me to speak to his students about my tornado-chasing and storm-watching trips. It was like Willie Mays prodding a Little Leaguer to regale fans about the kid's exploits in center field.

The class feigned interest while I gave my presentation, but they were genuinely attentive when this man, who was old enough to be their great-grandfather, spoke. They knew if they wanted to learn about the sky, clouds and weather, there was no better source.

Day taught classes at the college until he was 91. He wrote “The Book of Clouds,” a beautiful coffee-table book, when he was 90. He wrote a column, “Words on the Weather,” for the McMinnville paper for 29 years, until he was 94. He golfed until he was 92.

When he died, he was in the middle of a collaboration on another book, tentatively titled “Field Guide to Clouds and Weather.” And he had several other projects going, said Carolyn McCloskey, one of his five children.

“He never thought he would not be here tomorrow,” McCloskey said.

There are many, many people who will miss him. Thousands worldwide knew him through his “Cloudman” Web site (cloudman.com), where his photos and philosophy are on display.

One woman, an inmate in a prison in Northern California, became a pen pal.

“She started teaching other women there about looking up,” McCloskey said. “It really made their day, because that was about all they had.”

But not all of Day's admirers shared his level of fascination with the heavens. To the local community, he was a multifaceted man who gave back far more than he got.

He co-founded a nonprofit program that helped thousands of low-income people gain access to health care. He worked to establish Linfield College's continuing eduction program to make it easier for full-time workers to finish their educations. Several community organizations heaped honors on Day, including McMinnville's Man of the Year award in 2002 from the local Jaycees.

He was a musician, a philosopher and an intellectual. He taught adult Sunday school classes at the local United Methodist Church for more than 40 years. He even took to acting in a local production at age 92.

“I don't know how he had the energy,” McCloskey said. “We laughed about it. We should have got him a cape.”

Borden, the founder of For Spacious Skies, a 28-year-old organization that tries to raise awareness and appreciation for all things up, found a kindred spirit in Day. Borden admired the sense of awe that Day never lost.

“When you were hanging out with him, it was like hanging out with a kid who was excited about everything,” Borden said. “He lived the life of a person who had this ever-present sense of wonder.”

That wonder, at least toward the sky, was Day's gift to the world. In his last column for the local paper, he wrote about his dream: Local residents would start and end each day by looking up. In his dream, they would call each other whenever they saw an interesting cloud.

“His dream is really amazingly true,” McCloskey said. “You can't believe the number of people who look up and talk about the clouds.

“He had a dream, and you know what? It happened. He won't be forgotten because of it. One man can, just by keeping with something with a lot of passion, make a difference.

“He had a full, full life.”

Visit the Weather Watch blog at Weatherwatch.uniontrib.com . Have a question or comment about the weather? Write to Weather Watch, The San Diego Union-Tribune, P.O. Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191. Or send e-mail to rob.krier@uniontrib.com.