Spring blows in sooner than expected

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Hi neighbors. Did you remember your green on Friday? If not, I hope you didn't get pinched.

Monday is the first day of spring. Funny, last week felt more like spring.

It always amazes me to see the trees all bare one day and by the next day there are budding and the third day green leaves are everywhere. Spring flowers are blooming. Some of the trees and shrubs are producing white and yellow blooms. I'm ready for spring.

Not for tornadoes though. Two siren alarms in one day is some kind of record isn't it? That's enough of that as far as I'm concerned.

When the first alarm went off, I looked for the flashlight then remembered I left it in the car. I grabbed the radio, wireless phone, and a supply of matches and candles and headed toward the bathroom. I've heard bathrooms are the safest rooms and how many of those cartoons have we seen in the past with some poor cartoon character sitting in his bathtub while his house is no where to be seen? I called the dogs to come into the "safe" room with me and they did come in. Then they realized the bathtub was in that room and both did a 180 out the door. They thought it was bath day I suppose. They never came back, although I left the door open for them.

The second time the sirens went off and stayed on for several minutes, I again hurried to the bathroom. I took the phone, then realized I had unplugged it from the wall jack when it started lightening.

Sometime while listening to the radio repeatedly get zapped off-line by lightening, it occurred to me that the bathroom was right next to the heater closet.

What if a tree fell on the house? What if it knocked the house to one side and broke the gas line -- the very gas line that connected to the heater less than three feet away? I left the safety of the bathroom and ran to the thermostat to turn the heater off.

In retrospect the heater's thermostat being turned off probably would have had no influence on broken gas lines. At the time I was thinking at least it wouldn't kick on and have a big "whoosh" of gas-lit flames come shooting out. Obviously I had forgotten about the pilot light.

Thank goodness I didn't have to worry long about gas pipes, trees, dogs nor tornadoes as Nevada once again lucked out.

Some of our neighbors were not so lucky. They have my sympathy.

I decided to leave the candles and matches in the bathroom. It is, after all, just the beginning of the season. I'll feel better when I can turn off the pilot light to the heater. Then I'll just have to worry about the pilot light on the water heater.

All this concern over gas pipes got me to wondering how safe would a basement be after all? Isn't that where most gas lines are? And water pipes! If the fumes or flames don't get you the flood from the broken water pipes might.

Sad to say, there's no "safe" place to hide when the sky decides to slap you around or pick you up and throw you.

My Ohio cousin called to check on me when she saw the report of over 100 tornadoes being spotted in Missouri on the weather station. She had her own troubles as they were having snow! Calling me gave her one less thing to worry about.

More bad news last week was the death of local writer and film maker Gordon Parks. I never had the opportunity to meet the man, but he made a difference in many people's lives.

What person wouldn't like that claim to fame? To know that some thing you said, wrote or created with your hands made other people stop, look and think about it.

Of course, after Katrina and our own tornado scare, we realize that anything created can be destroyed. Only the thoughts remain -- so making people think is the real test of any art form.

Until the next time friends remember, keep a disaster bag handy, your phone plugged in, and give your dogs their bath in the kitchen sink instead of the tub.