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.