Family Togetherness

Views: 155
Added: Tue Sep 16th 1:32pm
Posted in: Writing

• » print
• » report
• » email

My brother was worried about saving his 1000-finger banana plant; I was worried about saving my life. I’m not a major worrier, but when there’s a tropical storm/hurricane in the front yard, I get a little apprehensive. I mean, when the water is rising, you can’t see the road anymore, and there’s a good-sized alligator checking out the neighborhood, I get a little testy. I grew up in Florida so I know a lot about tropical storms/hurricanes. Many times, as a child, I heard: "We dodged the bullet this time, but we may not be so lucky next time." When I was about 6, I remember wondering: "Why are people running around with guns when there’s lots of rain and wind coming?" And, I thought, "where are the guns and bullets? I don’t see them."

Anyway, I was in Florida a couple of weeks ago for tropical storm Fay, and it wasn’t fun. I was there with two very senior citizens – my mother and my stepdad, Lonnie; and my sister, Babs, praise the Lord. We lost power off and on for 3 days, and were virtually stranded in mom’s mobile home (not a good place to be). Both my brothers had offered us their homes and we could have driven there before the storm hit, and they offered to come get us in four-wheel drive vehicles after the wind and rain subsided, but mom decided that we would STICK IT OUT. Once that decision was made, I told everybody to remain calm as I ran in a frantic from room to room because I had nothing else to do. My sister sat in a chair with one of those strange books she reads, and laughed at me.

However, my sister and I were very serious about having a plan if the dreaded tornado warning siren went off, especially in the middle of the night. She and I were sharing the guest room and, as we went to bed, just before the worse was coming, this was the plan we came up with:

1. Dress for it. For Babs, that meant sleeping in street clothes; for me, it meant going to bed in my sensible jammies. What difference could it possibly make? Even if I was air-lifted in a helicopter bucket and the TV cameras were rolling, I thought it was a good look.

2. If/when the alarm sounded, I was to run to my stepdad’s bedroom (yes – he and my mother have separate bedrooms, but I don’t want to go into THAT in this story) and I was to run with him out the back door to the detached concrete-block garage. (This was my sister’s part of the plan, not mine.) I was also to grab the key to the side garage door off the hook inside the back door of the house. Meanwhile, Babs would run to mother’s room, grab her, and also head to the garage.

3. Once in the garage, I was to shove Lonnie (my sister did use the word SHOVE) under a big desk, and cover him with some couch cushions that were out there. She was going to do the same with mom. (Babs has some latent hostilities where her/our parents are concerned.) Then, my sister and I were to place ourselves in front of the cushions covering mom and Lonnie, and then grab more cushions to cover ourselves with. Prayer was also to be used at that time.

4. Stay there until we heard the ALL CLEAR alarm sound.

There were a couple of problems with her plan. For one, I thought it might be a little cumbersome for all four of us to be stacked up against the garage door while I tried to unlock it with the little, tiny key while a monster tornado was bearing down on us and the rain was pouring down and the wind was swirling around us. Number two, neither one of us knew if the key was ACTUALLY hanging on a hook by the back door, and we were both too lazy to get up and go look. We came up with a modification: instead of grabbing the key to the side garage door, we would get the garage door opener. That way, we could all four run into the garage together and Babs and I could start the pushing and shoving to get them under the desk quicker. As with most plans, this one had a problem, too. We didn’t know where the garage door opener(s) were. Babs told me to get up and go ask mother. I said, "No, you go." She said, "No, you go." We did this several times and then both said to each other: "forget it – you’re no help." We went to sleep and the good news is, no tornado came, and we both survived the visit!