“Out of the night, when the full moon was bright, came the wireman known as Zorro!”---Anonymous
As predicted, the bout was wild and wooly. Fists flew, teeth gnashed, blood flowed, fight-fanciers screamed in delight and horror. Irma landed blow after blow, occasionally staggering her opponent, but Florida would not go down, backing into the ropes like Muhammad Ali, covering up, letting a savage opponent punch herself out. When it was over, the judges called it a draw, but this affair was no tie. The Sunshine State, wobbly on its watery corner stool, would live to fight again. Irma was done, punched out, a has-been, no longer a threat to Georgia, Tennessee, other champions to the North she had been expected to dispatch with ease. She quietly retired with bloody knuckles and diminished libido, never to be heard from again. The Queen is dead! Long live the Queen! What?
You Can’t Get There From Here
As the days passed, shock and awe diminished to general annoyance. Consarn it, when are those power boys going to get out here and hook up the electric? Heard about any stations that have gas? How do I get to Williston from Reddick, there’s giant ponds on every road? The Cosmic Frustrator was playing Universal Chess with his flock, watching in amusement as hurricane greenhorns stumbled into roadblocks, ground to a halt in deep water, put the car in the garage and got out the rowboat. The only place a man could find bread and water was at the local prison, grocery shelves were bare. Vehicles were compromised by suspect petrol laden with devilish goobers raised from the bottoms of gas station tanks emptied and reemptied by the insatiable public petrolust.
Down at The Iron Skillet, the long-distance truckers discussed the situation with bravado. “This ain’t nuthin’. Why, in the storm of aught-four, ten-foot waves were crashin’ through the streets. I got water comin’ in my cab. Weren’t for Jesus and some dumb luck, never woulda made it back to Withlacoochee.” “Yep, and that storm surge ‘t went through Appalachicola knocked a hunnert boats onto the highway. Man couldn’t get his load across town without smackin’ into a dinghy. I like to went belly-up broke. This Irma’s a wet dream compared to that mess.” Yee-haw.
Next door, at the Petro station, we filled up Siobhan’s Ford 150 and headed home, thrilled to finally have a full tank. We got about thirty yards before the tell-tale shimmy began, symptomatic of water in the gas. After turning the engine off and back on, we made it another thirty. Third time’s a charm, they say, and so it was for us with no more adversity all the way home. Next day, we dumped a can of Seafoam into the gas tank and the tide finally turned. We think a lot about the tide these days. After all, it’s just down the road a piece.
Mighty Mouse Is On The Way!
Now, sometimes when the fat hits the griddle, when the lines grow long and the gas runs out; sometimes, when you’re stuck in the middle, and your rabbit’s-foot’s lost and you’re fillin’ up with doubt….
Well, those are the times the television reporters usually show up to display man’s inhumanity to man. People cut one another off in gas lines. Brawls break out in supermarkets. Brawny redneck women battle over the last generator. If you’re a viewer of the Jerry Springer persuasion watching from the arid safety of Tempe, Arizona, this is all great TV fare. But a few calloused louts do not a citizenry make. In Our Town, USA, it’s a different story. In the midst of the gale, people are surprisingly generous. Neighbors rush over with chain saws to unblock your driveway. Teenage kids in pickups bounce around the area, clearing the roads. Friends call and bring supplies to wounded neighbors. At Pathogenes, Siobhan & company receive a giant box of tasty treats from her worried customers at the 3 Oaks Equine Veterinary clinic in Virginia. Endless lines of out-of-state electric trucks snake down the interstates on the way to help besieged allies, remaining for weeks until the job is done. Nobody is worried too much about who is black or white or mauve or Hispanic, help is on the way. Maybe what we need here, Martha, is a few more hurricanes.
The Good Guys
In Miami, Sister Margaret Ann, a Catholic nun and the principal of Archbishop Coleman High School, grabbed her chainsaw and marched outside in full habit to cut trees and clear the roadways around her school for hours. Miami-Dade deputies took photos and told reporters, “She’s not just fooling around, she’s practically a professional with that thing.”
At 12:30 a.m., at the height of the storm, Lakeland Police Department deputies rescued two adults and two children (6 months old and 10 months old) from a car stranded in a ditch in four feet of water, placing their own lives in danger from fast-flying debris. “They never hesitated,” the victims applauded. “It was barely possible to even move.”
Kerry Sanders, an NBC reporter, and several allies lifted two beached dolphins back into the sea on Marco Island during the storm. Marcelo Clavijo and others saved two manatees which had washed ashore by rolling them into a tarp and dragging them 100 yards into the water.
Ed Kondrat, a 59-year-old man from suburban Detroit, drove over 1200 miles to pick up his aunt in Arcadia, just north of Fort Meyers, then had to battle with her to get her to leave. “The things you do for love,” sighed Ed, filling his jumbo coffee cup for the return trip.
Just prior to the first lashes of Hurricane Irma, Pam Brekke was desperately scouring near-empty stores, looking for a generator for her ailing father, who is on oxygen. She was beaten to the last one at a Lowe’s emporium by Ramon Santiago, and Brekke leaned against the shelves crying, fearful that without electricity her father would die. Seeing her distress, Santiago, for whom English is not a first language, insisted she take his unit. “She need the generator,” he said. It’s okay. No worry for them.”
Ms. Brekke was overwhelmed by the gesture. “I can’t believe he would do that,” she said. “That is a great gentleman right there. God will bless that man.” And guess what? God did. Next day Lowe’s brought him back for a big surprise. A free generator was waiting. “He deserved it,” said the store manager. Nobody argued.
Island Getaways
On St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Washington, D.C. banker Anna Fisher, 34, was trapped with her boyfriend in the Frenchman’s Cove hotel. As Irma passed over the island, word arrived that a ferry was en route to take the guests to Puerto Rico. “Most of the staff live on the island, where 80 percent of residents were without adequate shelter, yet selflessly gave their service with a smile,” Fisher remarked. “They volunteered their own cars when we convoyed through treacherous conditions to get to the port. The woman who took our group was such a sweet person. We all piled what luggage we could into the trunk of her small Hyundai. Then, she apologized in advance for crying when she would see the damage to the island.”
When they arrived at the Marriott-chartered ferry, Fisher was startled. “I was expecting to be on one of those old tin-can ships where you’re all sitting in rows, swinging back and forth---and honestly, I would have been fine with that.” Instead, there were comfy seats, a hot meal and even a band there to keep spirits up. The trip was capped by a welcome at port in San Juan.
“We were received by staff cheering for us in waves, as if we had been refugees for weeks,” said Fisher. “I felt undeserving.” Finally arriving at another Marriott in San Juan at 3 a.m., the couple checked in and were handed envelopes containing $200 per person to help with transport home. Despite the shaky experience, Fisher and her partner felt uplifted. “I was totally exhausted,” she said, “but the whole experience left me humbled and inspired.”
At Nisbet Plantation on Nevis, General Manager Tim Thuell and his wife, Tina, brought the 10 guests still in residence to their own Great House when Irma hit, serving dinner free of charge and playing card games and scrabble to distract from the angry storm outside. Nevis-based water-taxi operator Winston Perkins took his motorboat from Nevis in stormy pre-hurricane seas to St. Maarten to pick up passengers stranded there from Tradewinds, the yacht charter firm. “He picked them up right on the beach in Phillipsberg and brought them safely back to Nevis,” said Tradewinds spokesman Ann Layton. “This is a perilous journey at the best of times, even in calm waters, but Mr. Perkins wanted to do his part to help.”
Sometimes, small, thoughtful gestures helped guests weather the storm. At the Boca Raton resort in south Florida, staffers issued glowsticks in case of lost power and gave helpful survival advice. TV reporter Valarie D’Elia, waiting out the storm at Disney’s Contemporary Resort outisde Orlando, was touched by how staff handled the many locals taking shelter there after evacuating nearby homes. “One housekeeping employee, a young man named Jackson, worked straight through from Saturday on,” she said. “During the heart of the storm at around 2 a.m. last night, he should have finally been sleeping. Instead, he got up when he heard commotion in the hallways---a number of despondent guests were learning their homes were lost. He consoled them through the news, went above and beyond because he thought it was the right thing to do.”
People helping people, what a concept! In these aloof days, when many of us can’t name a single neighbor, when the spirit of community has been lost to television and the Electronic Onslaught, when an innocent driving error can result in a shot across your bow---there still remains the possibility that out of the night, when the full moon is bright, the horseman know as Zorro might gallop in on his gallant steed Tornado to save your cookies. These days, when everybody in any sort of uniform is awarded the false title of Hero without really earning his chops, the true heroes emerge---often ununiformed---at the height of the fray, unannounced, anonymous, rendering aid and riding off into the gloaming night, weekend warriors for a different kind of weekend. Salud!
That’s all, folks….
