Friday evening - one for the books (or rather, for the blog)

It had been raining on and off all day, and by mid afternoon I became aware that our area was under a tornado watch. So I turned on a T.V. and found not only that, but there were tornado warnings one county to our southeast and two counties to our west. As the weatherman explained, the radar loop was replayed over and over. I could see that the most scary looking cell at the time (near De Soto, Kansas) would slide up northeast and pass us by safely to our north and west. There was another cell near Spring Hill, Kansas which was heading towards us, but it didn’t seem to be showing as much organized rotation. Better safe than sorry I always say, so I took our bird – cage and all – down to the basement, and busied myself gathering up some of the family photo albums for safekeeping. I took a break and sat back down to watch the weather updates.

Then our doorbell rang, and I assumed it was the next door neighbor girl wanting to play with our youngest daughter. My wife went to the front door and I called to her, “I don’t want her playing outside now”. Time passed, a couple of minutes it seemed – more than it would take to say that our daughter couldn’t come out to play. I must have been curious; it takes a lot to pull me away from tornado coverage.

I went to the door and there was an older gentleman – probably in his eighties – with a cane. He was dressed all in gray, and had been walking in the light rain, really just a drizzle at the time. I looked to my wife (what’s going on?) and she said “He’s going around the neighborhood introducing himself”. I stuck out my hand and said, “Hi, I’m Bob”. He didn’t quite hear that right, but that’s okay…I don’t hear everything right either. Anyway he repeated my name as Tom; then he shook my hand. He told us his address, and I thought I had it narrowed down to one of three houses. I asked him, “Is yours the house with the flagpole, or is that your neighbor?” He said, “No”, then a pause and “Yes, I have a flag”. Another pause, then he got out his wallet, opened it up and showed it to us. We noticed an AARP card and a card that said disabled veteran. My wife and I exchanged glances (by now we were confused enough we didn’t know what to say).

Then he said something about Mexico.
I said, “what about Mexico”?
Another pause, then, “Do you watch Wheel of Fortune”?
“Well, not lately, but we have watched it before.”
“They showed pictures of Mexico, it looks pretty”.
I replied, “Oh, it was a prize, someone could win a trip there”.

“Yes”, he said. A long pause this time. He pointed south, “Is that the way to Mexico?”
“Uh, yes, but it’s a long way.”
“A long way?”
“Yes, thousands of miles. People fly on planes to get there”.

Another long pause.
Thinking of the severe weather, I said, “You might want to get home, there’s a storm moving in”. The man turned away to walk down our steps and my wife and I said, “It was nice meeting you”. He continued down our sidewalk out to the sidewalk along the street. We were watching and waiting for him to turn north, back towards his home.

But sure enough, he turned south.

My wife and I looked at each other. Sure, he might have been planning a stop to introduce himself to our neighbor to our south…but what if he had it in his mind to walk to Mexico?

He walked maybe fifteen feet, then apparently thought better of it and turned around facing north, then stood there in the rain for about half a minute. My wife said, “What should we do? Should we walk him home?” I replied, “Either that, or call the police. Or just let him alone”.

But…we just couldn’t do that last. So, my wife got an umbrella, and I turned and told my daughter, “We’re going to help this man get home. If they blow the tornado sirens, you and your brother get to the basement”. Then to my wife, “Dear, I’m going to get my cell phone just in case. You catch up to him with the umbrella, and I’ll catch up to you”.

Which I did. By this time I was worried that the man might be disoriented enough that he might just wander out into the traffic…probably not, but who could say?

I think he was startled a bit when we came up to him; he told us he couldn’t hear anything with his left ear. My wife held the umbrella over him and said that we wanted to walk him home. He protested that we didn’t have to do that, but I said, “No, we like to walk”.

Every twenty or thirty feet or so, he would pause for a bit, then continue on. We were one block north of our house when he stopped, and we were right in the middle of a side street – fortunately a dead end to a cul-de-sac, so no traffic. After a bit we started on again. When we got to the bridge, he stopped, turned to my wife and said something that sounded like “Who are you voting for”?

My wife: “Who are we voting for? Probably John McCain”.

(I thought definitely McCain, but said nothing…waiting to see his reaction). I don’t recall if he said “yes” or gave a thumbs-up, but he seemed pleased.

The rain increased some, but just a bit. We were glad to help this man get home safely, but right in the middle of the bridge – all exposed – I thought, what would we do if they blew the tornado sirens right now, and we looked, and there it was?

At the north end of the bridge the man stopped, turned to my wife and said, “Do you remember Roosevelt”? She said something to the effect that that was before her time.

The man said, “He smoked, you know”, then gestured out with his hand several inches. (Immediately I had the mental image of a photo of FDR with his long cigarette holder). Then he mumbled something we couldn’t make out, stopped, and appeared frustrated. “I don’t remember his words”.

Half a block to go and we were at his house – not the one I thought, but it did have a US flag attached to a porch railing. We walked him to his porch, told him “See you later”, and looked back to see that he had gone inside. We walked home a little faster, but we were pretty soaked anyway.

When we got inside I thought about changing out of my wet shirt right away, but looked at the weather report. The cell from Spring Hill had gotten bigger with definite rotation, and spotters had reported a funnel cloud. From what I could tell on the radar image, that stupid thing was headed right for us. We located a couple of flashlights, I grabbed a few pictures and one of my mom’s paintings, and took them downstairs; came back up again and then we heard the sirens. I glanced at the T.V. and estimated I had maybe two minutes. Made a trip upstairs, grabbed some backup computer disks, and a couple of boxes of photos, and took them to the basement. One more trip up to grab another painting, then back down. My wife came down to the basement and joined me and the kids. She had been frying turkey bacon as part of supper, so she brought a plate down (she also had her purse with her keys and cell phone). We munched while we watched the basement T.V.

Long story somewhat shorter…after a few minutes It looked like the storm was safely past us, and the funnel cloud was spotted a mile and a quarter northeast of our place. We never saw it. We went back upstairs for the rest of supper. The severe weather turned into more of a flash flood event, and it did pour hard for a while. We had to check the sump pump from time to time; but no floods and no storm damage at our place or near us.

What an evening.