Unusual Weather We're Having, Ain't It?

May 25th, 2011

A tribute to the tornado victims of the Midwest
Recent events remind me of The Wizard of Oz. Sure without the green, pardon me, emerald towers and witches, but the movie none-the-less. I am not sure what part of the world you live, but it seems that tornadoes are synonymous with the movie where I am from. It is no mistake that Dorothy is from Kansas because Baum knew that is tornado country. Over the past week there have been an ungodly amount of tornadoes sweep through the Midwest. The real Midwest, where corn grows and tornadoes flourish. This is where we raise our kids, this where I raise my kid....crap! Missouri, Oklahoma and now Indiana all hit with devastation. I wish the worst thing that would happen in a tornado event is we'd get swept off to a magical land and we can just click my heels to get home. I wish I was actually asleep, no one was hurt and the only damage was the door tore off the picket fence.  Welp, it doesn't happen that way partners. What we are left with after these things, absolute devastation. The weather peeps try and warn us, but just short of saying, "today is going to partly cloudy with a 80% chance of life altering devastation," the best they can do is radars, alerts and warning horns. God bless them for what they do or the death toll could be in the thousands.  

     I am sitting in my office, down the hallway, across from the bathroom. I am watching my wife sleep on the floor wrapped in a blanket next to Ryan, who is sleeping soundly strapped in his car seat. It is around 11pm and we are having the worst storms roll through. I am following intently on the the computer, surfing the different radars...zoom in...zoom out. I am also half watching the always cute Angela Buchman tell us the hot spots of the storm and reporting the damage. Meanwhile 20 miles to the south my friend Alayna and I are texting back and forth. I tell her the status of my household and she shares with me the same thing. She has a boy that is going to be on Ryan's soccer team in 3 years named Ben. He used to be a porker like Ryan but has since thinned out a bit, but he is four months older. In a text she said, "do you ever wonder if our kids think 'who ARE these people' at times like this?" I totally get what she is saying. She is right, I bet the boys were thinking, "I was sleeping in my bed and now I'm in my car seat in the bathroom with you, the (insert pet's name here) and all the blankets while daddy monitors the radar!" Funny if you think about it, but i would venture to say we are not alone in this 'tornado protocol' meaning there are probably lots of households doing the same thing. Just think if we acted like Dorothy we would carry our baby around outside while we see the twister off in the distance and just call for your aunt,  try to lure her out in the open and get sucked up in the vortex. Anybody else think it was stupid for Dorothy, with dog in tow, to go in the house and sit by the window? Heelllooo, we clearly saw the tornado coming in the distance. Times like this is when your fatherly instincts kick in and you make sure you do everything you can to keep your kid safe. I put Ryan in the car seat, strapped him in and when the thing finally got here I'd put him in the tub and throw a blanket over us. I figured if that car seat is good enough to keep him safe in my truck going 65mph, it is the best thing I have in this situation. Honestly, if you want my opinion, I would suggest a kit of some kind with bottles, formula/breast milk blankets, flashlight, batteries, radio, cell...you get the idea and put it all in a Tupperware bin. That way if you do get hit, the stuff is dry and together.....who knows if you end up somewhere over the rainbow you can hock your stuff to the Scarecrow and that puss of a lion to get to Oz instead of skipping with them down a yellow road. Could you imagine if the Lion had kids and was in the tornado? You saw how he acted when it snowed in the poppy field...."Unusual Weather We're Having, Ain't It?" and then he fell asleep. Meanwhile all the lion cubs would be sucked up in the twister - get a car seat Lion, geez!

    I couldn't imagine what it is like to have a big twister hit your house and see all your life spread across the neighborhood. My heart goes out to Joplin and like towns across the country. It is awful to have to rebuild your home, but to rebuild your community is just devastating. I put Ryan's wooden cross from the church in his car seat as he slept in the bathroom. I wish I had one big cross I could have put across Missouri, Oklahoma or Indiana this week. I guess the optimist in me keeps saying, "be thankful that is was not worse", but I hear the stories and it is hard to fathom "worse".  The sun always comes out after a storm and you can see a rainbow off in the distance succeeding the tornado. That is when the people come out and come together, reconnect and rebuild. Just when you think all hope is lost Midwesterners find the energy and the hope to go on and put things back in order. Great people can overcome great adversities. One day soon, after the rumble is cleared and the communities are back in gear, some dad will be pointing out a rainbow and tell the story of the tornado of 2011. Ryan is such a sweet thing, I would never want him to go through something like that, but I'd like to think if he did he would be strong like the folks of these towns. I'd also like to think if he did go through a tornado, he'd end up with the Munchkins for a spell. At least he would be able to come home and teach his old man how to tap dance while licking a giant lollipop!