Friday, June 12, 2009

I have become re-acquainted with my fascination with tornadoes. They are crazy awesome. It is really just part of growing up in tornado alley (like hurricanes on the coast). I personally got excited any time that sky would get a green hue. You could see the fronts colliding in the evening sky. Just exhilarating. I have been withing a few hundred yards of a couple over my lifetime and seen several at the 2+ mile distance.

I think they don't get as much national attention as hurricanes b/c you can't track them for weeks and pontificate about where they may eventually cause destruction. You develop a relationship with a hurricane. Heck, they even have names. Tornadoes are like one night stands. You never know when one might spring up, and they'll be gone just as fast. If you are fortunate enough to experience one, you cannot back down. I mean, these regular guys drove right towards it. Just watching that video made my heart race a bit.


(as a point of disclosure, i have never in my life had anything close to a one night stand)

2 comments:

CC said...

you had a one night stand, it's just that it has lasted over a decade. and by one night stand, i mean a series of dates that led to a proposal that led to a wedding, and so on and so on.

Mark Osler said...

I had one, in 1997. It was incredible. Like you said, I didn't see it coming-- it seemed like just another evening. I hate to admit it, but it was in my car.

That sucker pushed the car from the middle of the street to the curb. The light was purple, and there was this loud whooshing sound. I really thought the car was going to flip over when it hit the curb, but it didn't. I walked the rest of the way home.