Uncle Henry would have a few days to “get the chickens in” if a hurricane were a ‘comin.
Growing up in the tornado belt, April/May could be a bit stressful.
Our school had tornado readiness drills, which replaced Russian A-bomb drills for a few months. But neither inspired confidence, because in Catholic school, we would stop to pray the rosary before evacuating.
Even less confidence inspiring was evacuating to underneath our desks, which we were told had the ‘Papal Infallibility Shield’ to ward off Khruschev, Miss Gulch, and the Devil. And sex before marriage.
Tornados were part of our social lives; it seemed there was a tornado warning every Sunday night, meaning we spent a couple of hours together as a family in the basement weekly. Years later, we held our family reunions in the basement.
And I earned my Webelos badge warning our deaf neighbors, learning the sign language for “You’re screwed! Get to the basement!”
I now live in the Hurricane Belt, and June through November can be a bit stressful.
The media ‘Merchants of Hysteria’, and over reaction by Government officials really pump up the stress level.
We usually have 5 days advance warning – like “being stalked by a turtle” – so it’s easy to follow your Mother’s ‘clean underwear’ guidance.
But the Weather Channel doesn’t want you to know storm path updates are only issued every 3 hours by the National Hurricane Service, beginning at 2A – – there’s no new news until the next update.
The coverage between updates is an attempt to entertain/terrify viewers, so you can ignore live reports that feature:
The link between tropical depressions and the mental health crisis;
What to wear to an evacuation – is a white jump suit OK after Labor Day?
I shared a name with a hurricane: My tale of social media cancellation.
The Government isn’t helpful either, calling for evacuations to: Celebrate the man my Captor calls “The Governor”’s wedding anniversary, when a Braves game goes into extra innings, or to just stay ‘in practice’, and urging us to cover our head with tin foil when the wind picks up.
It pains me to say that, because the man My Captor calls “The Governor” was so helpful during Covid – letting us walk the beach, drink beer without a straw, and wear our masks below our nose.
He also made kids return to school to avoid ‘virtual learning’; I knew what a waste that would be, having spent my college years “virtually learning”.
To show our appreciation, we have a tiny “The Governor” statuette on our dashboard, which looks a lot like ‘used to be-Saint Christopher’ with a MAGA hat.
Perhaps I am a bit over confident about the threat of a hurricane, as we are the furthest western point on the Atlantic coast, as far west as Pittsburgh.
Oh yeah, and I bought a generator. And lots of tin foil.
We didn’t evacuate during Hurricane Irma, and I plan to never evacuate again.
There is so much to enjoy in a hurricane non-evacuation:
The amazing ‘calm before the storm’, when no one is in town, and you can get a table at any restaurant. All of which are closed, unfortunately.
Five days without power, allowing us to recreate our favorite scenes from “Little House On the Prairie”.
Daily picnics! Eating gallons of ice cream and perishable food items before they spoil.
So I’m staying, no matter how hard they try to convince me otherwise.
The downside? We get blown away.
The upside? I end up in a mythical kingdom, and am hailed King! because of all the tin foil on my head.
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TO ENHANCE YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THIS POST, PAIR IT WITH THE FOLLOWING SONGS:
I Think It’s Going to rain today Randy Newman
Broken windows and empty hallways
A pale dead moon in the sky streaked with gray
Human kindness is overflowing
And I think it’s going to rain today
Scarecrows dressed in the latest styles
With frozen smiles to chase love away
Human kindness is overflowing
And I think it’s going to rain today
Lonely, lonely
Tin can at my feet
Think I’ll kick it down the street
That’s the way to treat a friend
Bright before me the signs implore me
To help the needy and show them the way
Human kindness is overflowing
And I think it’s going to rain today
A rainy night in Soho The Pogues
I’ve been loving you a long time
Down all the years, down all the days
And I’ve cried for all your troubles
Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together
And we saw them as they fell
Some of them fell into Heaven
Some of them fell into Hell
I took shelter from a shower
And I stepped into your arms
On a rainy night in Soho
The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows
You told me all your joys
Whatever happened to that old song?
To all those little girls and boys
Sometimes I’d wake up in the morning
The ginger lady by my bed
Covered in a cloak of silence
I’d hear you talking in my head
I’m not singing for the future
I’m not dreaming of the past
I’m not talking of the first times
I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still there’s a light I hold before me
You’re the measure of my dreams
The measure of my dreams
Lost In the Flood Bruce Springsteen
The ragamuffin gunner is returnin’ home
Like a hungry runaway
He walks through town all alone
“He must be from the fort”
He hears the high school girls say
His countryside’s burnin’
With wolfman fairies dressed in drag for homicide
The hit-and-run plead sanctuary
‘Neath a holy stone they hide
They’re breakin’ beams and crosses
With a spastic’s reelin’ perfection
Nuns run bald through Vatican halls
Pregnant, pleadin’ immaculate conception
And everybody’s wrecked on Main Street
From drinking unholy blood
Sticker smiles sweet as Gunner breathes deep
His ankles caked in mud
And I said, “Hey, gunner man, that’s quicksand
That’s quicksand, that ain’t mud
Have you thrown your senses to the war
Or did you lose them in the flood?”
That pure American brother, dull-eyed and empty-faced
Races Sundays in Jersey in a Chevy stock super eight
He rides ‘er low on the hip
On the side he’s got “Bound for Glory”
In red, white and blue flash paint
He leans on the hood telling racing stories
The kids call him Jimmy the Saint
Well, that blaze-and-noise boy
He’s gunnin’ that bitch loaded to blastin’ point
He rides head first into a hurricane and disappears into a point
And there’s nothin’ left
But some blood where the body fell
That is, nothin’ left that you could sell
Just junk all across the horizon
A real highwayman’s farewell
And I said, “Hey kid, you think that’s oil?
Man, that ain’t oil, that’s blood”
I wonder what he was thinking
When he hit that storm
Or was he just lost in the flood?
Eighth Avenue sailors in satin shirts whisper in the air
Some storefront incarnation of Maria
She’s puttin’ on me the stare
And Bronx’s best apostle
Stands with his hand on his own hardware
Everything stops, you hear five quick shots
The cops come up for air
And now the whiz-bang gang from uptown
They’re shootin’ up the street
Oh, that cat from the Bronx starts lettin’ loose
But he gets blown right off his feet
Oh, and some kid comes blastin’ ’round the corner
But a cop puts him right away
He lays on the street holding his leg
Screaming something in Spanish
Still breathing when I walked away
And someone said, “Hey man, did you see that?
His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud”
I wonder what the dude was sayin’
Or was he just lost in the flood?
Hey man, did you see that?
Those poor cats are sure messed up
I wonder what they were gettin’ into
Or were they all just lost in the flood?
Middle Cyclone Neko Case
Baby, why’m I worried now,
Did someone make a fool of me
‘fore I could show ’em how it’s done?
Can’t give up actin’ tough,
It’s all that I’m made of.
Can’t scrape together quite enough
To ride the bus to the outskirts
Of the fact that I need love.
There were times that I tried,
One for every glass of water
That I spilled next to the bed,
Wrenching pennies in a boiling well
In a dream that it once becomes
A foundry of mute and heavy bells.
They shake me deaf and dumb
Say, “Someone made a fool of me
‘fore I could show ’em how it’s done.”
It was so clear to me
That it was almost invisible.
I lie across the path waiting,
Just for a chance to be a spiderweb
Trapped in your lashes.
For that, I would trade you my empire for ashes.
But I choke it back, how much I need love…
This tornado loves you Neko Case
My love, I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls they hang inside-out from their mouths
But it’s never enough
I want you
Carved your name across three counties
Ground it in with bloody hides
Their broken necks will line the ditch
‘Til you stop it, stop it
Stop this madness
I want you
I have waited with a glacier’s patience
Smashed every transformer with every trailer
‘Til nothing was standing
65 miles wide
Still you are nowhere
Still you are nowhere
Nowhere in sight
Come out to meet me
Run out to meet me
Come in to the light
Climb the boxcars to the engine through the smoke into the sky
Your rails have always outrun mine
So I pick them up and crash them down
In a moment close to now
‘Cause I miss, I miss, I miss, I miss, I miss
I miss how you’d sigh yourself to sleep
When I’d rake the springtime across your sheets
My love, I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls they hang inside-out from their mouths
But it’s never enough
My love
I’m an owl on the sill in the evening
But morning finds you
Still warm and breathing
This tornado loves you, this tornado loves you
This tornado loves you, this tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
What will make you believe me?
This tornado loves you, this tornado loves you
This tornado loves you, this tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
What will make you believe me?
Slow Train Bob Dylan
Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can’t help but wonder what’s happenin’ to my companions
Are they lost or are they found?
Have they counted the cost it’ll take to bring down
All their earthly principles they’re gonna have to abandon?
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend
I had a woman down in Alabama
She was a backwoods girl, but she sure was realistic
She said, “Boy, without a doubt, have to quit your mess and straighten out
You could die down here, be just another accident statistic”
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend
All that foreign oil controlling American soil
Look around you, it’s just bound to make you embarrassed
Sheiks walkin’ around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings
Deciding America’s future from Amsterdam and to Paris
And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend
Man’s ego is inflated, his laws are outdated, they don’t apply no more
You can’t rely no more to be standin’ around waitin’
In the home of the brave, Jefferson turnin’ over in his grave
Fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan
And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend
Big-time negotiators, false healers and woman haters
Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition
But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency
All non-believers and men-stealers talkin’ in the name of religion
And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend
People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting
Oh, you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it
They say lose your inhibitions, follow your own ambitions
They talk about a life of brotherly love
Show me someone who knows how to live it
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend
Well, my baby went to Illinois with some bad-talkin’ boy she could destroy
A real suicide case, but there was nothin’ I could do to stop it
I don’t care about economy, I don’t care about astronomy
But it sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend