Time to forget about watching your regularly scheduled programming! That’s right, kiddies, it’s severe weather time here in the Heartland. A time when the local meteorologists start to get all tingly because they’re going to see more airtime than Michael Jordan’s shoes (sooo lame, I know). Beach ball sized hail! Flash floods! TORNADOES! The word “literally” being tossed about as if people actually knew how to use it correctly! “It is literally raining cats and dogs out here, Jim.” Nope, it’s not. There are no poodles clogging up my gutters or downspouts that I can see.
You see, we take weather very seriously here in the Midwest. Or at least, those people who A) live in trailer homes, B) believe everything they see on t.v., C) have seen the movie “Twister” way too many times.
We live on the very Northernmost tip of “Tornado Alley.” We have a fair amount of tornadoes (please don’t call them twisters) but not as many as Oklahoma or Kansas. And, since the majority of my state is flat, tumbleweed wasteland (no offense, Nebraska) the tornadoes that do hit don’t really damage any personal property or people. Except for the big one in 1975. My mom was 6 months pregnant with me and luckily, she managed to stay safe (so I can’t use the tornado victim cop-out or PTSD for my many issues).
When I was in elementary school, we used to have tornado drills. I think the kids still do, but I think they’ve updated the drill since I was bangin’. Tornado Drills went a little something like this: I believe some type of bell or siren would go off and we would stand up next to our desks and file out in a straight line row by row. The poor son of a bitch who sat in the very last seat had the task of opening all the windows before he/she made their way down to the hallway in the basement. Once there, we basically curled up in the fetal position and made sure our heads were covered. Much like a typical afternoon for me now.
Let me say that again: the elementary aged student was forced to stay in the room alone and open the glass plated windows. That’s right. It was the belief at the time that the pressure caused by a tornado would blow out all the windows if they were closed, therefore, it would minimize damage if the windows were open. Can you spot what’s wrong with this picture?
A child, one who still cried for his or her mommy when they had a bad dream, one who probably still picked his or her nose and wiped it anywhere but on a Kleenex, was told to stay behind in a roomful of glass, at least a floor above the safety of a basement and open windows that would be destroyed by a tornado regardless if they were open or not. I mean, if a tornado is that close – close enough to blow out windows – odds are the building is probably going to have more serious damage than just broken glass. Now, I’ve never even seen the cover of a Physics textbook, but that’s a pretty safe assumption I think. Thank Pete for alphabetical seating charts and all the Williamses of the world. I believe that part of the drill has now been changed. No more opening windows for little Johnny.
But see, the weather people around here are constantly interrupting us with severe weather reports, so I just can’t take it seriously anymore. Growing up, I used to stand on the porch with my dad during storms and watch the rain and debris wash down our street. I used to run out in the middle of a hail storm to grab a really big hail stone just so I could store it in the freezer. (That could actually explain a few things, now that I think about it.) The only thing I ever worried about was that all the rabbits and raccoons and deer and birds around our neighborhood were safe.
Maybe that’s why I’m not afraid of storms. My parents never made a big deal of it. I mean, they never put us in harm’s way or anything, but it’s not something to get worked up about, really. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. No matter how many times you interrupt your own news program to bring me breaking weather news, I will not panic. I will not give in to your hype. I will enjoy the rain and the lightning. I will tell my kids that thunder is just the sound of angels bowling in heaven.
Until I hear those emergency sirens and the power goes out, I will stand on my porch and watch the rain run down my street and check my gutters for domesticated animals.
My God - Kenny Rogers really IS the Gorton's Fisherman!
