Midwestern Hurricane

It was a week ago today that we were almost blown away! Sustained winds of 50 miles an hour and gusts up to 75 or 80 mph. That officially classifies it as a hurricane. Right,Pat? It took most of us by surprize. High winds were predicted but not as high as we got.

My power was off from Sunday until Thursday night. I stayed at Karen and Paul 's the first night but when it became obvious that the power was not coming back for quite awhile, I decided I should stay home. Our dinner at Karen's and Paul's on Sunday night was truely great. Paul put a beef tenderloin on the grill along with some potatoes to bake and while we waited for that to cook we had tomatos with Camenbert and blue cheese chunks with olive oil and balsemic vinegar drizzled over it and Greek seasoning sprinkled on it along with some sushi that had to be used because of the power outage and of course a few glasses of Sharaz wine. We ate outside of the enclosed patio and had candles on the table to add to the ambiance and to allow us to see what we were eating. Even Fergus got to join us and he has a liking for sushi ,we discovered, when he helped himself to a serving. We topped our gourme meal off with fresh peach pie that I had baked just before the power went off. Life is tough in these River Towns.

We have a large oak tree in the front yard and T. Tabb, the owner of the empty house next door, has two large oaks in the front yard and one in the back along with an ash tree between the houses. Needless to say we had many, many limbs down in both front and back yard. My deck table and umbrella with all my shamrock plants and ceramic hippo and tiger were all blown over and some even off the deck. The umbrella was blown into the yard next door and my neighbor behind me saw it going so he and his wife jumped in their car and came over to help me and so they had a view of a huge branch spliting off their tree and falling on their deck where they had been standing just before coming to my aid. Very frightening.

On Monday, Michele, Jeff, Julie and Jane came to help clean up my front yard. Christian, my teenage neighbor that I taught at MDS when he was in the 7th and 8th grade came to clear my deck of branches. Karen and Paul swept the deck and helped pick up the plants.

Brian, who used to camp frequently, came over and brought me a Colman stove and a battery powered lantern, and a minor's lamp so I could read. Gregg brought me a cooler full of ice and cokes.( they were even the baby bottled cokes which I can hardly survive without!) Linda brought me some items from the store that I could eat without cooking. Life is good!

One evening, Karen, Paul, Kathy, Abby and I went to Red Lobster for dinner and one day we went to Buckheads for lunch and one day I went to The Cafe' with Toni and her mother for lunch. Penny Skinner had me down for a fantastic dinner that her husband, Jack, had prepared on the grill. Salmon with dill sauce and sweet potatoes. Penny brought me home before dark and then later that night, my power came back on.

There are so many stories of people helping each other. As I drove down the street I noticed the bright orange heavy duty extention cords stretched across the street. One neighbor on one side had power and the person across the street did not so they shared. Isn't that beautiful? Many people had generators and so they could get by. Gregg was without power until last night! one day short of a week! He has a generator and he said it cost just about $30.00 a day to run it. The people with gas ranges were lucky, Linda had no power but she does have a gas range so that made life somewhat easier. Mike and Jane lost their power for just two days. Kathy and Michele and Brian didn't lose theirs. Kris and Tim were without for five days also.

Midwestern Hurricanes are a lot easier to deal with than the coastal ones because we have no water surges, no levees etc. to worry with. For us it is a huge inconvience and we did have some fatalities but nothing nearly as bad as they are dealing with along the Texas coast.

August 22, 2008 11:43AM

On August 22, 2008 at 11:43, Doc peacefully passed into eternity. We had a long and fruitful marriage. We were married in Covington, Kentucky on February 28, 1942. During the next nineteen years, we had six children. He spent two years as a soldier in WWII and because of Crowell Collier Publishing Company's demise he worked in Kentucky for a year while I waited in Springfield, O for him to find a house for us and in later years, he spent a year away from our home working in Mt. Vernon, Illinois until he could get a job here in Louisville again. Four years out of the sixty-six we were together.

We had some rocky times and we had some smooth times but we always toughed it out and came out on top. It would be hard to tell in the limited space of this blog what we accomplished in the sixty six years of our union and hard to tell of the joys and sorrows we endured together. The important thing is we lived up to our commitment: "for better or for worse until death do us part."

It is comforting to know that his genes live on in the fourteen grandchildren and twenty-some great grandchildren and the impact of their lives and deeds will benefit future generations. Who knows what great things they can or will accomplish? He will be a part of it all. His genes live on!

" And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one creature makes a void in any heart,so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up!"
Charles Dickens