11 November 2020
I’d like to offer a salute to fellow veterans. Especially my Dad. That he was able to survive not only WWII but also Korea is amazing. As I have written before, the war never left him. He had nightmares until the day he died.
Today is bittersweet for another reason. Veterans Day also marks five years since I had Rocky put down. I still miss that damned dog! Part of me wants to get another and part of me rebels at trying to replace him.
As far as pandemic news, I called today and found I was negative. They were supposed to call me but the five day waiting period had passed. They got to my results pretty quickly once I called.
Florida has seen a 28% increase in cases since November 1st. I suspect this current outbreak will surpass anything like we’ve seen before. Again, I’m optimistic about a vaccine but wonder if it will be too little too late.
After all the renovation of the flooring and kitchen, and painting of walls, I was a little concerned that after Citizens Insurance paid out $36k they would not renew my policy. I normally get my renewal notice around the first of November. I went online today and saw it was ready for renewal. I paid online as fast as I could before they could change their mind. My Citizens policy includes wind coverage which a lot of companies do not. The price for renewal was $3821.00 for 12 months. Last year the cost was $3634 so it only increased $287. However, with the number of hurricanes this year, I suspect it will certainly increase a minimum of 10% for 2022.
The neighborhood is drying out. I could cross streets on my walk today pretty easily except for one place along Riverland Road that always floods and always keeps water. However, we are still under a flood watch tonight. November 30th is the last day of hurricane season. However, the last two years, we’ve had storms before the start date. I don’t think it will be too long before we start getting storms after the end date. Climate change in action!
Every so often someone asks me if I ever think of moving somewhere where hurricanes are less frequent that southeast Florida. I have but I’m not sure where I could go. The west coast has earthquakes and forest fires. The southeast has tornadoes. Edgar Cacye thought Virginia Beach, Virginia was the safest place to live in the states but they are susceptible to hurricanes, earthquakes, waterspouts and a giant tidal wave if part of the Canary Islands breaks off into the ocean. I think I’ll just stay here for a while. At least you get forewarning for hurricanes – no so much tornadoes.
Speaking of tornadoes, I’ve seen two funnel clouds in my life, both in Florida. The first was a waterspout off the coast and the second was sitting in my old white pickup on the overpass to I-95. I looked into my rear view mirror and saw a tornado out west, behind me.
Since I grew up mostly in Mississippi, tornadoes were a way of life. I remember going down into the basement of Mr. McCrene’s house in Boyle, Mississippi for a potential tornado. Mom and Dad waked Archie and me and took us down. The Mississippi Delta tends to attract those things. Mr. McCrene was a cotton farmer and his cotton fields backed right up to the house. It was a two story house with a kid friendly basement that Archie and I spent many hours exploring. By the way, until my niece sent me this clipping, I always assumed Mr. McCrene was spelled McCrain. It was certainly pronounced that way.
It was at his house in Boyle that Archie had to put down our dog, Sister Kate.
The back of the house had a screened porch and we’d let Sister Kate out onto the porch. A neighbor’s dog broke through the screen door and attacked her. The other dog punctured Sister Kate’s windpipe and Archie picked up the 22 rifle and walked out into the cotton patch and shot her to put her out of her misery. I don’t think he ever forgot that nor recovered from it. In reality, Sister Kate was his dog.
My next experience was in Mr. McLaurin’s house in Morton on Pulaski Road (MS 481 S). It missed us but I remember Dad piling all of us into a car and driving through the darkened countryside looking at the damage. It was eerie to say the least. Over time, I’ve seen the greenish-black funnel cloud (without the funnel) several times over my life. It certainly gets your attention and makes you understand how insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things.
Two tornadoes near Morton stand out for me. The first was when I was in Boy Scouts. I must have been in the 9th or 10th grade. I was standing across from the Gulf Cafe in Morton at Stuart’s furniture store when the fire station siren started blaring. That was used for not only fires but also tornadoes.
I was just stupidly standing there listening to the siren when James Russell Johnson’s wife rushed out of a store and grabbed me by the arm and said come with me. James Russell was the high school principal. If that was impetus enough, Mrs. Johnson had a no-nonsense, business first approach to life. You didn’t say no to her without some consequence.
I had known her all my life since she was Dr. Clark’s nurse. I asked where we were going and she said to the hospital. The hospital was on the opposite end of where we were on Main Street. She said it was going to get quite busy and she needed help.
When we got there, it was pandemonium. They were bringing in people from all around the surrounding area. The tornado had hit just a little north of town, and as you might guess, the poor black section. There were people in the hallways moaning with broken limbs, cuts, lacerations, and even some with gashes and compound fractures. She immediately put me to work.
Later, another kid showed up. He was new to the Boy Scout troop and his Dad was a veterinarian for B.C. Roger’s poultry plant. His Dad had been asked to come help at the hospital so he tagged along.
Obesity decreases continue reading address levitra on line Men’s fertility, too Although much of the focus on obesity and infertility is on women, it absolutely affects men, too. No more than one tablet should be taken generic viagra cheap in order to make the most of Tadalafil Softgel Capsule. Before we talk about the supplements that are known to have positive effects on ED: DHEA, or dehydroepiandrosterone, is said to be effective in cheap viagra in india treating ED are caverta, zenegra , kaqmagra oral jelly etc. This ingredient has power of accelerating the blood flow decreases in genital areas it creates problem get cialis without prescriptions for man during a sexual intercourse.Not long after that, Mrs. Johnson grabs us both and asks us to help load someone on a gurney. She then wheeled them into an operating room. She came right back out and asked us to then move the person from the gurney to the operating table. The doctors were in sterile garb and there was no one to life from the gurney to the table.
I thought this was above my skillset since (1) I’d never been in an operating room (2) the person we were asked to move was, to put it mildly, very obese and (3) we weren’t dressed in scrubs or sterile gear of any kind. However, we weren’t presented any option.
Fortunately, I had been in scouts long enough to know how to do a two person carry. One person got on the left side of the person to be carried and another person got on the right side. You then slipped your arms under the person and locked wrists with the other person to lift. That’s what we did – for the rest of the night. I think I finally staggered home around 3 am. Mind you, all this was done with flashlights and emergency lighting. The entire county was without electricity.
When I had time to look up, it was Dr. Clark and the other kid’s veterinarian Dad operating. I wonder how many people learned they were being sewed up by a vet?
Another experience came when a tornado hit north of Morton (a seeming pattern) and destroyed a bunch of farms. The high school asked for volunteers and we were all loaded onto buses and sent to walk the woods looking for bodies. We never found any. We spent two days doing that.
One consequence of the damage was the number of nails ripped out of their planks and deposited in the fields. For a while, most farmers were desperate to find tractors with the old metal wheels. It only took one trip through a field and 4 flat tires on the tractors to realize they couldn’t use regular tractor tires.
Occasionally, I still dream about getting caught up in tornadoes. That type of trauma stays with you for life.
I’ve been at sea during two hurricanes. That’s pretty frightening as well. In one case, on board the CGC Reliance, out of Corpus Christi, three of four engines were out of service. We were doing 4 knots ahead of the storm and the storm was moving our way at 6 knots. Let’s just say it got pretty rough, particularly during my radio watch when books started flying past my head. All books on ships are in book cases with massive lips and also bungie cords to keep them from flying around. You learn quickly to eat saltines to keep something in your stomach so you can throw up that instead of bile.
The next time was also aboard the Reliance in Corpus. We started to get underway but I think we had engine failure (again) and we decided to ride the storm out in port – that’s a big no-no! Obviously, we didn’t have any choice. When I came on deck the next morning the boarding plank was at a 65° angle. To get aboard, you had to literally climb hand over hand. The storm surge had raised the ship about 8 feet above the dock. Normally, the boarding plank had about a 3-4° angle. Apparently the bosum’s mate knew what they were doing. There were three times the amount of lines tying the ship to the dock. I later found they were constantly releasing more line as the ship rose on the tidal surge.
I’ve been in one earthquake – strangely, in my graduate school office in the biology department at Ole Miss. Many people forget that there is a major fault in the Delta – the New Madrid fault. I was sitting there studying for some test when I noticed the water sloshing out of my aquarium onto the floor.
The New Madrid (pronounced MAD drid) was the fault whose seisim in 1811-1812 (after shocks) caused the earth to split open. There are written records of settlers in the region where they cut down trees to allow people to walk over deep chasms created by the earthquake. It caused a massive drop in one area and the Mississippi River diverted and formed Reelfoot lake in Tennessee. To fill Reelfoot, the Mississippi River supposedly flowed backwards for 4 days.
The New Madrid fault is very overdue for a major slip. Of course, the only seismic station at the time of my earthquake was an Ole Miss station in Holley Springs. After the earthquake, Ole Miss cut funding for the seismic station. Who needs those, anyway? Some seismologists think this fault has more potential for destruction that the San Andreas fault.
Then there are fires. When I worked for the Bureau of Land Management in Miles City, Montana, all employees were required to undergo forest fire safety training and we could be called out at any time to fight forest fires. During my short tenure with them, I never had to go out and fight a forest fire, thank goodness!
Actually, I had some pretty good training in firefighting. I went to the Naval firefighting school Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. It was how to put out a ship’s fire but the concepts were the same (1) remove the fuel source, (2) cool the fuel source below kindling temperature and (3) remove any oxygen.
For some reason, I was put in charge of our squad. In one exercise, we were told to enter a room and fight a fire and if there were any leaks that popped out to immediately leave. We walked into the room and water was coming through the ceiling of the compartment and we proceeded to fight the fire. The trainer pulled us out and started screaming at me about not leaving the room during leaks. I screamed back at him that the ceiling was leaking when we walked in and I assumed he would not send us into a situation that had not been checked and it was OK to proceed to fight the fire. He got quiet and I think he realized no one had shut of the system from the previous fire trainees.
The next exercise was more intense. We were sent into a narrow tunnel-like space with a wood fire burning out of control. I was on the hose and the rest of my team were managing the hose behind me. The hose had enough pressure to peel the bark off a tree and you had to have four or five people to man a single hose. As I sprayed the fire, smoke billowed into the tunnel-like space. Several of my crew started to panic and back out. I had to turn around and cuss them out and tell them to get back on the hose. The fire was finally extinguished and we backed out – all of us coughing our lungs out. The trainer pulled me aside and gave me praise for stopping the panic. I felt pretty good about that.
Speaking of fires, my song recommendation is Bob Seger’s “Fire Lake.”
Stay tuned and stay safe!
