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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