Thursday, October 11, 2018

The Evil Dissipation Blues

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Here It Comes Again

Late July is a hectic time on the West Coast of Africa.  Little child storms---Allie…Bradley…Cornelia---come bobbling down the steps on the last day of Hurricane School, laughing, joking, making plans for the Summer.  They say their goodbyes and load onto separate aquabuses in alphabetical order, finally prepared for their trips to the islands, the playgrounds of Mexico, perhaps even a visit to the States.  They grow quickly on their voyages, some much more than others, their fates determined by geography and the fickleness of meteorological phenomena.  Some will travel to jaunty Cuba, others to Cozumel, a few lucky ones to New Orleans and the stragglers to the East Coast of Texas.  The less determined will dissemble in the cruel Atlantic or be buffeted north and east by unforgiving weather fronts which have no time for such foolishness.  By mid-October, it will all be over.  The sea will grow less inviting, the temperatures lower, the proud African hurricanes gone for another year.  Ah, but it’s not quite the time to exhale.  This is the sniveling season, the time when ill-bred punk storms gather on the shores of Havana and make devious plans to roar north through the Gulf of Mexico on their rugged tricked-out hydrocycles, dropping in on unsuspecting victims celebrating the end of hurricane season.  Outlaw storms, unacceptable in polite company, sneak in the back door, cackling, oozing slime, stealing your valuables.  It’s time for one last battening of the hatches, a final curtain call for the trusty generator, maybe even a visit to Aunt Mabel in Detroit.  Nobody worries too much, though.  These latter-day invasions are just flies on the windshield, minor annoyances, rarely possessing the wherewithal to make it to Category 1 status, let alone blow down your she-shack.  Hey, call the gang!  The hurricane party is at Marcia’s place.


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Michael Throwed the Boat Ashore

Or he soon will, with customary disdain.  As we write, it’s Tuesday morning in North Central Florida and the sun is out.  If there was no communication with the outside world, we’d laugh at the possibility of a late-onset typhoon.  The weather outside (somewhere) may be frightful but in here it’s just delightful, a typical day in the neighborhood.  Since we are, however, inundated with 24-hour weather TV, internet radar and screaming newspaper headlines, we’re all aware that Hurricane Michael is on his way to mess with our week, especially if we live in the Florida Panhandle between Panama City and Pensacola.  The rest of us are cautious.  We have oft been told optimistic tales about likely landing spots and Cones of Reliability only to have our illusions shattered when the monster suddenly pops up at our door.  “Sorry about that,” says Mr. Weather, safely ensconced in his Wurtzite Boron Nitride bunker seven miles below ground.  “I’ll be here all night to keep you posted,” he promises, “and to guffaw uproariously at your dumber-than-dirt questions and silly peccadilloes.  Feel free to call in.”

We do have to admit being amazed at the progress of television meteorologists, particularly the ones at WKMG-TV in Orlando who follow the worst parts of the storm right down the street where you live.  “Okay, Mork and Mindy at 576 Greenleaf Avenue, you’re next, get the kids under the sofa!  And don’t smirk, Ezra Cornfield at 62 Lemondrop Lane, you’re not out of the woods yet.  Whoops, Cora McAdoo—isn’t that your settee flying over the Donovans’ roof?  Mayday!  Mayday!  Tree coming through the delicate studio skylight….aarrrggh!”  Meanwhile, feisty reporters out in the elements hold tight to umbrellas and sing, “We have often walked down this street before…but the sidewalk always stayed beneath our feet before….”  It’s better than the Ringling Brothers Circus, which may be why they’re gone and weather reporters are still blowing in the wind.

Since, as we all know, these storms can turn on a dime, anyone in the tyrant’s path must make arrangements.  Those of us outside the Cone of Ignorance will be a tad lackadaisical, perhaps filling our vehicle gas tanks, measuring the generator fuel and trying to decide whether or not we will slog to work.  For our area, this does not appear to be a board-up-the-windows storm, so thanks for that.  The miserable wretches in the teeth of the hurricane have bigger fish to fry.  Do they stick it out at the old homestead poised for a rooftop rescue or do they motor up to Grandma Claudie’s place in Estaboga?  What about looters?  Will it take three weeks until the local smart alecs let everybody go home?  What will we do with Puff and Spot and My Friend Flicka?  It’s a nightmare.  My sister, Alice, who lives north of L.A., where they have drought, Santa Ana winds driving cataclysmic wildfires and monumental mudslides says she would never live in a place with these horrible hurricanes.  We’re going to hang around and see what happens.  Maybe it’s our rugged individualism.  Perhaps it’s those raucous hurricane parties.  Could be we’re just over the moon about having a full aquifer.  We look up north and see snow beginning to fall in Michigan and Montana.  The International Falls temperature right now is 38 degrees.  They’re greasing up the snowplows in Erie and breaking out the galoshes in Schenectady.  So what’s another hurricane in usually sunny Florida?  We’ll let you know.


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Oct18


“BOOM!” Goes The Dynamite 

Well, score one for the worry-warts.  Little Hurricane Michael latched onto a syringe full of manly steroids crossing the Gulf of Mexico, bulked up to Hulkish proportions and laid a cataclysmic beat-down on the barely prepared Florida Panhandle, annihilating poor little Mexico Beach and swamping Panama City.  Turns out Michael is the fiercest storm ever to strike the area, sucking the roofs off many a building, leveling others and washing the remains down the street and off to Neverland.  ABC weather maven Ginger Zee, reporting from a supposedly hurricane-proof room in a Mexico Beach hotel, admitted being shaken by the sight of a large blue house across the street from her perch lifted from its moorings and propelled down the avenue by the storm.  “I saw the roof on its side,” Ginger trembled, “rolling down the street.  Anything that was on this coast is gone.  It is going to be washed away.  It is going to be one of those concrete slab situations when all this is calms down.  My heart is racing.  I’ll tell you now, it makes you shake.”  No kidding.  Adding to the fun, part of the roof fell in on Ginger’s hotel while we watched.  Next time, can we have volcano duty in Indonesia instead? 

To everyone’s surprise, almost no deaths have been reported so far.  Unlike tornadoes and earthquakes, hurricanes have the decency to give a fellow a reasonable amount of packing time, a couple of days to weigh the pros and cons of evacuation.  What seems like an easy decision to self-righteous outsiders, is far from it for citizens who must watch every nickel, are physically compromised or have pets, especially big ones.  Petunia the Potbellied Pig is not welcome at any of the shelters I know and neither is Bonzo the Boa Constrictor.  Does anybody know how much it costs to spend two weeks in a motel whose rates have been influenced by a nearby disaster?  There are only so many shelters to go around and not everybody lives near the Super Dome.  Save the comments on the stay-at-homes, they’re not just sitting around the firepit whooping it up, high on smores and fine Cuban cigars.  Well…not all of them.


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Aftermath

Oh, somewhere deep in Africa, the sun is shining bright.  The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.  And somewhere men are laughing and somewhere children shout.  But there’s no joy in Cape Verde---Hurricane Michael has won out. 

The elders look grimly over the horizon in disbelief.  The children stare at the gruesome phoographs on the front page of the Novo-Jornal in utter shock.  Who would ever believe the proud African hurricanes could be upstaged by bourgeois mavericks from the other side of the tracks?  It was an affront to convention, an earthquake event, the upset of the century.

The bosses gathered at shore’s edge with a new determination.  “We have to go back to the drawing board,” one said, “come up with a new game plan.”  Their disappointment was palpable, it’s tough being King.  Every year for the past ninety at the annual celebration in Matanzas Key, an African Hurricane has won the iconic Blowhard Award.  But, alas, not this time, not for the Season of 2018.  The eldest of the elders raised a meaty fist and gazed west over the vast Atlantic.  “They have stolen our thunder,” he complained.  “They are spitting on our grave.  But we are not finished, not by a groot hans.  We shall regroup, we shall practice the basics, we shall up our game.  And when the time comes, when Summer is in full flower, we shall rise again and take up the challenge.  Wait Til Next Year!”

‘Twas ever thus.


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That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com