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Date: | Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:55:27 -0400 |
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Excellent stuff!
Larry2
---- [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> If everything is running smoothly
> I show up at the job (historic church nr Mobile) on Friday mornings ;
> stay for an hour then drive home for the weekend
> I had planned to do the same last Friday as some severe weather
> came into the state from the West and I was caught totally unprepared for
> it .
>
> The day started out pretty ;
> very sunny in the 70's with blue sky .
> We stay in a heavily wooded area of the island ; a shngri lai of wild
> flower
> with vine covered forest made picturesque with swamp and 200 yr old
> live oak trees
> with hanging moss and even older more venerable water oak ancient in
> park like settings of green
> that comes right down to the sea
> I like that my soul likes that ; I find it peaceful and poetic .
> if not tranquil and healing for this old man who just celebrated his
> 28th birthday (again)
> and refuses to get his boobs;r dongus or anything else be cosmetically
> fixed ;changed or surgically enchased to please anybody for anything that I
> can't say or express in words as some of my oldster friends have done to
> themselves with face lifts and the like
> so you just have to take me as I am
> Besides its Springtime
> and the coast is dreamy and emerald blue with white sand and the air is
> just delicious to be here ;.
> For those who know this area Bellingrath Gardens ; is just a stones throw
> down the road
> ; (google it )..... Ive done work there ..This is its busy time .....as it
> is world renown
>
> You may consider to retire here ;many people do but the summer can be
> brutally hot ;however the other three seasons are just purr-fect .
> So what a lot of people do is have a house here and keep a cabin in Maine
> or up in Wisconsin ;someplace where the only seasons are July and winter.
> Purr-fect
>
> Storm warnings were coming in late thurs night
> and it didn't look like the Gulf was going to get much of anything...
> Yet but think again
> By ten am fri storm advisory's were up and there was already tornadic
> activity reported from southern Louisana ......Im in the Gulf ....so that's
> North of me
> Time to hit the road Chief ;
> my plan was to get in 3.5 hours of driving and be ahead of the storms
> as there were reports that they were multiple .
>
> All was swell until I hit the northern Miss/alabama border at mid
> afternoon
> .A huge dark cloud with a sinister center was gobbling up real estate
> faster than Derek jeeter rounding bases . When I checked its coordinates on
> GPS weather it was less than 4 miles away and heading right for me
> Mother of Jesus .
> Route 45; goes North to South ;.Straight ; no lights ...besides the
> Natcehz Trace (americas oldest highway ) route 45 was known as the old Mobile
> milatary highway and revolutionary road and can be seen on maps from the
> 1700's.
> Tts all straight ;
> no curves put it on cruise control and read a book ...well maybe not
> today
>
> Few times in this life
> have I witnessed broad daylight go from bright sun to pitch black
> midnight so quickly in the middle of the day
> .Full eclipses come to mind ; but they take an hour ;im talking mins
>
> For hose unfamiliar with tornados
> The effect is Orwellian and chilling ; the whole landscape goes surreal
> and ghastly in a still eerie half light
> of sun and weird shadow that is mesmerising ; magnetic; and if you stick
> around deadly as a snake
> The silence is uncanny ; the temperatures go muggy and oppressive
> .No sign of life moves
> .Cattle in pastures had moved into woods hours before and the people whose
> cars are parked on the sides of roads have already taken to the
> underside of the overpass only to bite their nails and watch the ants climb
> the walls in a disturbed manner ;
> In a life of taking chances ;I surveyed the situation
> and decided to out run it Its a little like outrunning the train across
> the tracks ;you can see it coming ; you know its going to be close and you
> go for it
> GPS clocks it at 45 mph and Im runing 80-90...Do the math
>
> The opening curtain of the tempest is full of symbolism ; and like
> curses in a Greek tragedy it plays it to a hilt .
> A sudden wind blows in from no where landing a harvest of dirty dead
> leaves
> to blindly scatter across the highway .
> I believe in omens ......The signs of this one is is big ju ju ......
> time to get going ....Buckwheat .
>
> I open her up in 4 wheel drive and climb to 90
> The truck roars to life yet the storm seems to want to overtake me from
> the rear
> .. A violent wind and rain shakes the earth and rakes it with big drops
> and stinging sleet
> as it dances all around and atop of me
> . The wipers are slapping like mad and weather radio is nothing but
> warning sounds ;
> I feel like Im in an old ww2 sub movie and the claxton is sounding
> ...."Dive "dive "
> .Hands frozen to the wheel
> The weird half light of afternoon is now wept away by by a ugly morass
> of black cloud
> whose internal features are disturbing and unpromising to say the least
> My lights and flashers are fully on ;I pummel through darkness with my
> heart and hands in a grip of prayer and fear as Im keeping on hard now to
> outrun this sucker
> At times I feel the heart edge of the storm overtakes me as periodically
> all hell breaks loose in a carnage of wind and rage .
> Huge bolts of lighting crash sporadically about me in 15 sec bashers
> as frog stranglers of rain open up
> from some unseen cauldron above me and flood both earth and road .in
> torrents
> .Surely this is the dance of the hand maidens of Hell ; the final act
> comes whern the " fat lady sings "
> and shes just off waiting in the wings
> Suddenly a giant flash and crash land horribly close ;
> Im not waiting ....."Im coming home Ma Ma "
> and I almost loose it; The truck jumps but regains its margin ....;but
> only just I still can't see nothing but the center line
>
> Track and driver will never hear about this suicide run
> Im following the center line; as its the only 15 ft of white line I
> can see
> as I quickly careen through time zones of total black... into zones
> gray with white outs of rain
> and the faslling of golf ball sized hail .....pounding all down around
> me as if I were king Rex following the last float of the Mardi Gras
> parade
>
> ;Ive been here before ; Im not waiting to see this bastard
> Besides I know what the bastard looks like
> We met up in a mine 40 years ago ;
> I saw him in the broken bones of my leg and in the injury of my poor dead
> eye
> hanging fixed and defenseless by the last of its sinew ;
> I saw him in the eyes of the priest when they dug me out
> as he anoited my head and gave me rites
> then let the mine boss cover my head with his dirty fucking sheet
> so none could see
> ;
> ;Im not meeting him again ; not if I have anything to say about it ;
> He swims at my wake when I climb high scaffold or sail lonely in the
> dark; looking for the hole in the rocks
> to put in a hook ; to escape the fog ; the storm ; the pitch and the yaw of
> nights with no sleep
> . He follows with sleepless eye for the slightest mistake ;
> the wrong turn ....the wrong choice
> the miscalculation ; the making the sudden left
> instead of the known right .
> Yet The bastard is always there ; waiting as if he had all the time in
> the world
>
> "Buckwheat..dis is your time I remind myself
> Do yo stuff " and lets get home "
> and peel on down the road
> Lucky for me everyone else was pulled over ;
> In 5 mins ....Im gaining ground
> ; in ten mins I feel I am ahead of it.
> ..Weather radio says its moving at 45 mph .
> In an half hour Ive pulled away and out of harms way ......
> Im heading home /Mon
>
> The radio this morning reported last nights twister in Miss/ala injured 7
> and killed 2 but its still (unconfirmed)
> .
>
>
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