From my brother, Matt:
“Dan and his family live in Vermont, and when they come to visit us here in Wisconsin, he’s such a cheap bastard that he generally drives straight through, except for a couple of hours when his wife drives (she hates driving). So, when he gets off of the road, he looks all bedraggled and thirsty. So, I say, “Hey, buddy,” giving him a hug, “how’d you like a cold frosty?” And he says, “Thank God.” And then I go to my fridge and pretend to look around, and say, “Drag. We haven’t got any.” So then he has to drive down the block to get some.”
“You should try this some time.”
I like your brother already.
Now, my dad was such a cheap bastard, he insisted on driving through Indiana in the middle of a big tornado outbreak so he could make it to Chinatown for dinner before the buffet price changed to $8.95. Drove directly into a raging tornado.
So, instead of drinking coffee at Ho-Jos, waiting for the damn thing to pass, I found myself so close to a tornado I could have stood on the roof of the car and grabbed the tail with one hand. Fortunately, it missed us. It tore up a corn field on the other side of the highway and threw an entire barn about two miles. My sister couldn’t stop throwing up.
Good times.
Tornadoes are cool. There was a prof I had once from California, who wondered aloud one day why anyone would live in the Midwest, considering tornadoes. And I pointed out that we generally didn’t have to worry about earthquakes. And she started in with . . . I don’t know. But I asked her outright: “Can an earthquake thrust a straw through the forehead of a cow? I don’t think so!” So, I think I won that round.
It’s one of the scariest things I’ve ever had to deal with. When you get that close to the forces of nature, you realize how much you take for granted every day.
That’s true. So, did you make it in time to get the good dinner price?
Now, my dad was such a cheap bastard, he insisted on driving through Indiana in the middle of a big tornado outbreak so he could make it to Chinatown for dinner before the buffet price changed to $8.95.
Changed from what? These details are important, you know.
My sister couldn’t stop throwing up.
Including the Chinese dinner? Thereby wasting good money? My dad woulda give her a whuppin.
$6.95
I’m tellin’ ya, my dad was cheap. No, we eventually made it to Chinatown in Chicago that evening, but my father was a little pissed he had to pay more. (I wish I were kidding.) But he was a great guy and helped win WWII, so I’m hoping that’s enough to exonerate him.
I’m hoping.
“Can an earthquake thrust a straw through the forehead of a cow? I don’t think so!â€Â
The only two times I’ve actually seen a tornado I was in a bathing suit (beach, water park). I was so afraid I would die with my bathing-suited booty sticking out the side of a barn 3 miles away.
In an earthquake I feel I would at least have time to grab a towel and cover myself.
The ones I’ve been through have mostly been over before you had a chance to realize what was going on. Especially the ones I slept through, like the 1994 Northridge quake. I found out about that one when East Coast relatives called to ask if we were OK.
I love storms, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find a mess in my pants if a full blown twister was coming at me.
Having lived through both an earthquake (Pasadena, CA 1988) and a tornado (Detroit 1973), I’d take the tornado any day. Here’s why:
The tornado you have a sense that something’s brewing. The air smells weird, the sky gets green and murky. You have time to run screaming to the basement.
With the earthquake, it comes out of nowhere, there is nowhere to go, there are aftershocks. I know that the more damage is done by tornados. I know this opinion is irrational.
The tornado skipped my house, ripped the furniture out of the next door neighbors on one side and ripped the roof off the neighbors on the other side.
Interestingly, the tornado and the earthquake sounded the same: like a roaring train or huge herd of horse galloping right for you. Weird.
My earthquake can beat up your tornado.
As a kid I witnessed what a small tornado of the upstate New York variety can do, over the years I’ve also survived a couple hurricanes and one relatively small slab avalanche/cornice collapse. Being in the middle of a large hurricane is alot like having a freight train drive directly over your head – for several hours. My closest brushes with Mother Nature’s lethality have come via hypothermia and a near drownings.
I tend to get a bit animated when people go on about saving the planet. As if, it is entirely we who need the saving.
This thread is missing a good snow storm. They can be deadly too, you know. And I suspect they are cheap bastards, like Dan Collins.
Maybee – when Collins writes, you can always be sure theres a lot of snowing going on. have you forgotten so soon the epic…
“….It was February, and the lake effect snow was filtering down in silent specks through the light of the streetlamp at the corner of Lincoln and Oakland…”
Here in Florida our tornadoes tend to be relatively wimpy, unless there are a half dozen of them stuck to the ass end of a Cat 4 hurricane, then look out, baby.
The nice thing about hurricanes is that they give you lots of warning before they show up. You can sit around for a couple of days watching the idiots on the weather channel specualate about where it’s gonna hit and how bad it’s gonna be before you have to toss the kids into the van and head for higher ground.
– It took a few years after moving West to discover that, along with the lower pay (sunshine bucks), and incesant sun you eventually found yourself hiding from, you also became the Nationwide travel agency, and spring/summer/winter/fall fun vacation spot, for every relative from Bangor to Omaha. Eventually I simply did the “Not at home, but your message is important to us… please leave your message at the sound of the beep, unless you’re a deadbeat relative, then we’re definately not at home…ever….”
– When it got bad enough, such as the visit from a cousin I’d never layed eyes on in my life, and his entire alien lifeform brood (picture cousin Eddie from Lampoon’s “Christmas Vacation”), we simply moved leaving no forwarding address or paper trail that could be traced.
TW: things56 … that are hairy and try to convince you you’re related to them….
Ah, yes. March, 1961.
Nobody on the place but me and Dad. I was in my Grandmother’s house, supposedly cleaning things up, and Dad was doing chores at our house place. From me to Dad, seventy-five yards; another twenty-five to the barn.
Freight train? Stampeding horses? Well, if you’re trying to describe it to someone who’s never heard one they’re probably all you can do. But what it really sounds like is a jet engine on afterburner.
Dad performed the military maneuver taught him by the clever Japanese, i.e. found a sturdy object (the brick well-house) and melted into the ground next to it. Ernie Pyle wrote about holes appearing by magic when American soldiers stopped moving, but I didn’t really comprehend until that day. I stood at the window, mouth open like the dork I’ve always been, and watched as the tornado, a small one, approached the barn exactly like a kitten, sniffing carefully around, then reaching out with a paw…
WHAM! In actuality, the biggest fireworks that morning came when a couple chunks of 17-gauge sheet-iron roofing got wrapped around the 33 kilovolt transmission lines. FLASH! Bales of hay were strewn for a full quarter of a mile. A chunk of timber took out one of the posts holding up the front porch, but otherwise damage to the house was nonexistent. Not even lifted shingles.
Once seen, never forgotten. I’ve seen bigger ones far away, but never been that close again. And I’ve never been in a real (=damaging) earthquake, but living in the SF Bay Area I got used to the little tremors. Did the Earth move for you? Yeah. The Richter number will be on the eleven o’clock news. Toss me a cigarette, wouldja?
Regards,
Ric
Syracuse had a Labor Day windstorm a few years back. It wasn’t really a tornado, the winds moved in a straight line and were nowhere near tornado speed, but we ended up without power for a week. Natural gas water heater – at least I could shower.
Me, I rolled over and went back to sleep. The next day I thought to myself that it probably would have been prudent to go down to the basement. I get a lot of really good ideas when it’s too late… Anyway, it was loud enough to wake me up – which says a lot about the power of the storm.
Up here mother nature ususally leaves us alone. People die from shoveling snow, or just go crazy when they realize they haven’t seen the ground for 10 weeks and there’s only 10 more to go until there is any possibility of decent weather…