Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

 

I was a tourist a few miles from home, just grooving in the now. Neil Young and I were rockin’ in the free world.

I wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t even see nowhere from where I was, but the landscape was lacking the trappings of human civilization — buildings, cars and highway billboards.

I’d parked and hiked to a spot where I could visit the birds. I had a bad camera with me and intended to take several pathetic photos of trumpeter swans.

I was prepared for any emergency that could be handled with binoculars, a small Swiss Army knife and a Hall’s cherry cough drop.

Suddenly, I got one of those Twilight Zone feelings. Then I saw it. Even though I didn’t see Dorothy or Toto in the whirlwind, I recognized it as a tornado. This role model for some was a giant claw machine that had escaped from an arcade and headed my way!

It didn’t sound like a freight train. It sounded like a guy with my voice saying, “Oh, crap!”

Inspirational words.

Why would a tornado be after me? Had it lost a bet?

I had to think … er, uh, you know … fast. Yes, fast, that was it.

“Red Rover, Red Rover, let the tornado blow over,” I said.

I’d seen tornadoes before. I knew their power. A buddy and I were in high school and in a Ford when we encountered a tornado while trying to impress two young ladies who had been foolish enough to join us. We impressed them with our stupidity by ignoring weather warnings. We saw a tornado hit a house. We thought it couldn’t catch us. We were lucky it didn’t try.

In Minnesota, tornadoes have occurred in every month from March through November. The earliest reported tornado was on March 6, 2017, with the latest being on Nov. 16, 1931. June is the month of greatest frequency with July second. The most probable tornadic activity in Minnesota occurs in May (late), June and July between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m.

In an old TV ad, Mother Nature sampled something that she identified as her delicious butter. The narrator told her it was Chiffon margarine, not butter. He added “Chiffon’s so delicious it fooled even you, Mother Nature.” Upset by such trickery, Mother Nature responded by saying “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature,” followed by a lightning flash and a peal of thunder. The advertisements typically ended with the jingle, “If you think it’s butter, but it’s not: it’s Chiffon.”

I wasn’t trying to fool Mother Nature. I was trying to take photos of swans.

I knew the first thing to do. Do not panic. Somebody who never panics recommended that because tornadoes can sense fear. I was thankful I wasn’t in a trailer park. I had no hatches to batten down. I had no evacuation plan, so I needed a different kind of plan. I thought my years of playing semi-pro hide-and-seek might pay off. I considered putting rocks in my pockets. I could run in serpentine fashion.

I’d done some storm spotting in the past. I’ve lived around tornadoes all my life. I knew I was supposed to go to the basement or take shelter in a ground floor bathroom, closet or hallway; or take shelter under a heavy table or desk. If no shelter was available, I should lie down in a ditch.

I was fresh out of basements, bathrooms, hallways and I didn’t have my own private jet or Acme rocket-powered roller skates. I have to keep telling myself that Wile E. Coyote is a cartoon character. I had no ruby slipper heels to click together three times and say, “There’s no place like home,” and be home. 

I looked around. There was a ditch. It was full of water. I never knew anyone who survived a tornado while hiding in a ditch. I‘d begun looking for a soft spot in the fetid water, when for some reason, the tornado turned away from me. It did so without signaling.

I popped the Hall’s cherry cough drop into my mouth and traveled in the classic one foot in front of another manner to my car.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I was safely home. Everything and everybody there were OK.

I wasn’t a guy who’d been struck seven times by lightning, but I still had a story to tell. What are we without a story to tell and the time to tell it?

That’s a pretty sweet deal.

Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Saturday.