EF5 Tornados Leave Hidden Victims

June 20, 1957. Fargo, North Dakota. An EF5 tornado.

I was there. I was 3 years old. I have just one memory of the event.

Our whole family, in the basement, sitting under the heaviest table we could find, waiting.

No fear. Because I didn't understand what was happening. All I knew was that mommy was making us all hide under the table.

I came through the day unscathed, physically and emotionally. My scathing came later.

My mother, however, did not come through unscathed. A North Dakota native, she'd seen tornadoes before, but never one this big. After the tornado dissipated she got out and saw the destruction. I believe it changed her, made her fearful of the weather, of losing everything, including her family. Because after that day I have multiple memories of being called inside to seek shelter in the southwest corner of the basement. All false alarms. In those days weather radar wasn't even on the radar, so we were sheltered whenever it got daytime dark and looked like tornado weather.

I was never in another tornado, but all that sheltering changed me.

I began having dreams where I would be trapped outside, quivering in terror, with a tornado coming. Or I'd be at the door trying to get into shelter but be paralyzed, unable to move my legs or unable to move at all. My mother's feelings of helplessness before the might of a storm had migrated wholesale into my little psyche.

Those dreams continued, not nightly but frequently, for decades. I'm sure the nuclear shelter mania of the early '60s helped fuel my own internal terrors, but the object of my terror never varied. Tornado.

Eventually, well into adulthood, the dreams became infrequent and finally stopped.

These days, when I see storm news, people with homes destroyed, families lost, those are not the victims I most empathize with. I think about the near-miss children who are too young to understand, whose parents realize how close they came to being wiped out, and who will become over-cautious and hammer their fears into the young, malleable minds of their kids. Kids who will grow up with fears they do not understand from events they don't remember. Who may, or may not, come to terms with those issues after enough time and maybe enough therapy.

Second-hand terrors, boogie men, impressed even by well-meaning parents, suck.

150 Years From Now, April 10, 2163

A hundred and fifty hears ago was the midpoint of the American Civil War. Nobody knew it at the time, but from my future perspective, looking back 150 years ago, it's easy to say, "Yup. Halfway through." You might, if you are into that sort of thing, check out the book, "April 10, 1863."

What will today be seen as halfway through when peered back at by historians from 2163? There doesn't seem to be a way for us to tell. Even looking into the future like this, there doesn't seem to be a way to then turn around and look back into the past. The half-way point for Kim Jung Un? Who? Some minor tyrant in a little country, from my new perspective that puts today exactly 150 years into the past. In 2163, who but a student of missile crises will remember our present international missile crisis? In 2013, who but a student of the Asian dynasties remembers that about 150 years ago King Cheoljong left no heir and Gojong became final king of the Joseon Dynasty which ended when the Korean Empire was terminated by Japan in 1910?

Not me, that's for sure. I had to look it all up on Wikipedia.

The Quiet after the Crash

There are storms rolling through Shreveport today. Lightning storms. And if there's one thing about lightning, it's thunder. It really takes me back...

A couple years ago thunder struck a 90-foot pine tree near my house during a storm like today's. It boiled a strip of bark right off the trunk, top to bottom. Sap bled out of it for a few weeks, then the whole tree turned brown and started to disintegrate.

I was in the kitchen when the lightning struck. I could see the tree from there, just outside the window. The crack of thunder was so loud I jumped and nearly soiled myself. (I was handling foods that leave stains. What did you think I meant?) After the ka-bang I wondered if I had gone deaf. I didn't hear anything. The rain had not yet begun, so there were no eave droplets to hear. To test my hearing I would have to make my own noise.

I said a few words aloud. Nope, not deaf. The silence was nothing more than the contrast between the loudest thing I'd ever heard and the end of the loudest thing I'd ever heard.

I've never known anybody who keeps cheese in his pocket.

That's what they were saying at work today.

My question is: How would you know? If the cheese is in his pocket you would only know about it if he chose to show you.

Oh, by the way, I DO keep cheese in my pocket. Sliced cheese. It's flat, so it's perfect for transporting in a pocket. And the warmth of your body heats the cheese so it's nice and tasty when you finally eat it. Some days before I make a sandwich I will stick a slice of cheese in each pants pocket. Five minutes later, they're good and warm.