Wednesday, June 25, 2014

POST NUMBER ONE THOUSAND





After saving up this One Thousandth Post to say something, to reminisce, to go straight back to my Southern roots and tell a long-ago story, or to simply share a bit about our day-to-days, today there’s something that’s beyond price to talk about.

 

 A great part of the state spent yesterday in a tense thunder of wailing sirens, dire predictions, frowning skies and looming clouds, tornado touchdowns, wind and rain and tumbles of shingles, lawn furniture, whole rooftops flown away, with siding and gutters eerily speared clear through walls of adjoining houses.   One huge motor-home was lifted and thrown like a Lego onto and through roof and side of a neighbor’s home.

 

I woke Caro at two, sorry to disturb her rest before work, and she came down into the basement, where we watched angry red-and-green blotches cover the map like scourging flames, rolling along a swath that started at the state line, covering the city, angling along in a beeline of destruction, and continuing for hours.
 

Pale, bewildered, unable-to-take-it-in faces emerged and stood amongst strewn debris in their yards amongst downed trees and crushed cars and fences, confronted by raindrop-dotted lenses, asked endless how-do-you-feels by brisk reporters in bright vinyl coats.

 As the danger moved through, almost by magic, great hordes of strong young people appeared with tarps, hammers, lumber to plug and cover roofs and rooms, pounding in nails before the siren echoes died away.
 
And every voice said, “Thankful.”

 

And so say we all, for in all that great mass of fear and flying objects and homes in the path, there was not one single injury.

A story worth a thousand posts, if ever there was. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 comments:

  1. Storms are later this year due to the late spring. After a storm once, I looked around and said who's going to clean all this up? Hope you didn't get any damage. Thousand posts times tens of thousands of words; unbelievable. I have nearly 500 posts, and sometimes, I think, I've said it all. Congrats.

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  2. Happy thousandth post, and thank God you all are okay! I couldn't even imagine. Though it can happen anywhere, thank the Lord I've never experienced anything like it up north here. (Hopefully we never do because a lot of people don't have basements!) I was really glad to read that no one was hurt. :)

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  3. Darling Rachel,
    What a truly frightening experience. So much devastation in such a short. Time. It is always very humbling to see the full power of the Natural World and, as you say, one must be so very grateful that there was no loss of human life.

    Your thousandth post is cause for celebration indeed since through your posts you have made us, your devoted readers, laugh, cry, be outraged, be thankful and, most of all, be happy and content in knowing you and through that to realise that there are good, kind people in the world and that there is hope for us all.

    We love you.

    Stay safe.

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  4. Thank you, Donna---it seems a day ago, and decades, since that first long-winded, tentative post.

    Times ten thousands, indeed. I've never met a run-on sentence I didn't like, I guess.

    Thank you for all your kind comments, and for your own sharing of your most interesting life.

    rachel

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  5. Oh, Harleygirl! We lived in what they called Tornado Alley all the time I lived in Mississippi, and nobody had basememts much there. And with all the newer houses on slabs, no one ever put in storm cellars, either. I DO remember some dusty, hot, fearsome lantern-lit times in those.

    Thank you for all your sweet comments, and we're all so thankful for such a good outcome from a bad happening.

    rachel

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  6. Oh, Great and Gracious Rulers of Hattattia,

    I thank you so much for every single time you've looked in, for your kind words and encouragement, and for keepin' on keepin' on when my days were slow and mind empty of a subjects and words.

    We were indeed blessed, yesterday, to have such ready warning and moment-to-moment coverage, as well as such a passing-over of what could have been true devastation far and wide.

    We're truly thankful that it was not the swaths of destruction you see, with such loss of life and countless homes, and it's such a blessing to know that no one was harmed.

    And you know how grateful I am, that you count me as a friend. What a lovely thought, like having faeries in the garden, or hummingbirds in for tea.

    So many times and people and thoughts have been dashed down and sent out there, that it's as if I'd thrown salt to the winds, never to see most of it again, but later finding that it brought a little bit of savor to someone's day---what a lovely compliment.

    Thank you both, for your "constant reading" and because it BRIGHTS me just to know you two are out there somewhere.

    love and,

    r

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  7. Darling R,

    We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

    Xxxxxxxxxxx

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  8. Congratulations on your milestone! Thank you for stopping by my blog and your kind words.

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  9. Grateful. That's what I am - for spared lives, for strong young people willing to help and for you - sharing your life and thoughts with us 1000 times!!!

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