WATER, WIND AND SPIN – My Go-round With the June, 1981 Minneapolis Tornado

It's prime tornado season here in southern Minnesota. (From May through July we average 41 twisters each year.) 

I've been fascinated with tornadoes since I was a boy, and find it pretty ironic that, while I've still never seen a twister, I have, indeed, been in one. This post marks 25 years since that unforgettable experience.

A DRAINING EXPERIENCE
It’s June 14, 1981—a Sunday—a bit before 4 PM. I’m upstairs in my little house on 16th Avenue South, Minneapolis, chipping away 60 years of paint that's lost its grip on a window sill. Though it’s far from taxing work, I’m sweating.

The air outside, and even more so inside—on the second floor of a non-air-condi-
tioned house—is thick with humidity. I’m grateful for the occasional waft of breeze that finds me.

The work is pleasant. I’m accomplishing something, listening to some nice Hall & Oates on the stereo, and Bess, my sweet black lab, is lying on the rug beside me, panting.

At one point, I notice it’s getting kind of dark outside, and that now those breezes are holding their breath. You can almost smell the rain coming. Oh well, I figure, I’ll work until I feel it on my hands.

 A few minutes later the gunmetal sky and everything I can see out the window has taken on an eerie greenish cast. I realize this can’t be good.

I don’t remember hearing the civil defense sirens going off. Just that soon it’s raining, then hailing. Then the air starts churning…and that’s when I hear it.

          I picture the massive, vacuum-cleaning
          vortex swirling overhead.

SO MUCH DUST

Nearly everyone who’s lived through a tor-
nado says they heard an unearthly rumbling heading toward them. Like a freight train. That’s exactly what I hear. Bess hears it too and gets really squirrelly.
 
I’d always wished I could see a twister. I admired those daredevils who tear along back roads in Kansas, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle to document them. So here’s my moment, I'm thinking; I’m about to be in the middle of one. But I can tell you, what I’m experiencing is not a thrill.

IMAGE: The Weather Channel

I imagine the massive, vacuum-cleaning vortex swirling overhead.** And here’s this flimsy little house, these two minute creatures helpless in its path. If it’s an F4 or F5, we’re like so much dust.

I take the cues and start down to the basement. First I shut the window, and I feel my ears pop as if something just sucked all the air out of the house. In the kitchen I grab some candles and my portable radio, and by the time Bess and I reach the cel-
lar it’s like we’re under a trestle and the train is thundering right over us.

     The entire roof of the three-story apartment
     building next door gets lifted off and dropped
     across my back yard and garage.

FOREST FOR THE TREES
We’re not in the basement for more than a few minutes when the ominous roar ebbs. And we still have a roof over our heads! I head cautiously up the stairs and, thank God, everything appears intact.

It’s when I go outside that I see the destruction. Eighty-foot, half-century-old trees ripped from the ground. Cars piled on one another. Large sheets of drywall and other building materials strewn in the street. (I later find out they’re from the Sears yard a mile away.) And the entire roof of the three-story apartment building next door lifted off and dropped across my back yard and garage.

IMAGE: teapots happen

• The so-called Har Mar tornado, rated an F-3 with winds reaching nearly 200 miles per hour, was on the ground for 26 minutes.

• The human toll: two fatalities, 6 serious injuries, more than 80 minor injuries. (Experts considered it miraculous that these numbers weren't much higher.)
• Other impact: $47 million in property damage; 1,300 homes, 50 businesses and 400-plus vehicles damaged or destroyed; 3,500 trees killed; some 30,000 customers without power.*

So I’ve finally experienced my tornado, up close and personal. I suppose that affords me certain bragging rights. The good fortune of having survived it is not lost on me, but I'm also disappointed that I never saw it. 

Maybe this tornado season I’ll get that chance (from a safe distance this time).
                                               ~       •      ~       •      ~      

* Storm data thanks to CBS News, WCCO and Minnesota Public Radio, and
   Hennepin County Emergency Management.

** I should write a post just about all the ways air acts like water. Suffice it 
to say for now that how water drains from a sink or bathtub, how it swirls—counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere—is exactly the way air acts during nearly all tornadoes. And yes, just like water, most tornadoes spin clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.

I BEG YOUR POLLEN – The Joyous Succession of Summer Flowers

The other day a friend and I were comparing notes on our daily walks. He won-
dered how I, as Mr. Wonder himself, manage to spot something new to photo-
graph and write about nearly every day. 

I explained that if, instead of simply waiting to be struck by wonder, one seeks and expects it—a notion I call SEEING GENEROUSLY—there’s always something new to see.

 Each plant hands off the duty of beauty to the next.

PASSING THE BATON
One example, I explained, is the splendid sequence of flowers that bloom through-
out the summer here in Minnesota. No sooner does one species shed its blossoms—turning to the work of reproduction—than another’s unfurl. 

It’s like a bloomin’ relay race; each plant hands off the duty of beauty to the next. Something's always flowering afresh, serving up something new to see, smell and carefully touch. 

First, the heralds of spring: Siberian squill and snowdrops. 



Then, in order:

• Crocus, hyacinth and daffodils.
• American tulips and Virginia bluebells

• Common lilacs, followed by late lilacs
• Bleeding hearts and lilies of the valley
• Peonies

• Irises
• Hydrangea
• Lilies and gladiolus
  
  

• Bee balm and coneflowers
• Asters and dahlias
• Chrysanthemums

Of course, this is just a sampling; there are so many other plants—including trees—that join the bloomin’ cavalcade. 

Catalpa flowers 

CYCLES OF LIFE
Besides just flowers, lots of things change during a Minnesota summer: Bird song, smells, the shades of green bedecking trees… Even people’s faces. So don’t let your walks get stale. Look for wonder, expect wonder, not just in all these plants and crit-
ters, but in change itself. 

And don’t let this, another of Nature’s countless lessons on life, be lost on you: 
We all bloom at different times too!

STRING OF PEARLS – The Sequence of My Perfectly Imperfect Days

DRAWING: Albrecht Dürer

Each night as I settle into bed, I say a prayer of gratitude for the day’s blessings. From the most profound gifts,
like peace, freedom and the health of my loved ones; to somewhat less vital ones, like a safe, warm, comfortable place to sleep; to such a trivial gift as the smell of the lotion I just rubbed on my hands. 

Lately, this prayer’s started to feel pretty repetitive; it’s been much the same script every night for like a year and 
a half. Life’s been so good during this stretch that I’m wondering if my gratitude’s become so humdrum as to lose its sincerity. I mean how pure can one’s appreciation be for things one’s seldom, if ever, had to do without?

I ask myself if, God forbid, my fortunes should turn south—I get sick, a friend dies…whatever—would I still be able to feel grateful despite the pain? That doesn't mean I'd deny the emotions. I'd acknowledge and process them, but I'd also cele-
brate how many, many nearly perfect days there have been.

   Hey, I remind myself, it’s still a string of pearls.

PHOTO: Pearly Luster

VARIED TREASURE
So, to hone my thanksgivings, take my blessings less for granted, I’ve been picturing each of my most fortunate days as a pearl. (I’ve amassed quite a string—by my rough calculation, about 25,000 of them since I was old enough to even think about gratitude. That’s an array of pearls the length of two-and-a-half football fields. Or, I suppose, if I made each pearl repre-
sent a year, I'd have it down to the length of a nice double-loop necklace.)

Of course, strung here and there throughout my life are a few outliers of, how shall I say it, varying luster. Some are misshapen; some are off-color or have obvious blemishes. A handful represent such heavy hurt or sorrow that they’ve broken and fallen off.

PHOTO: shutterstock

But hey, I remind myself, it’s still a string of pearls. 

It may be far from perfect, but the precious little orbs scooch together to fill in the gaps; I turn some so you can’t see the flaws. And I still have this unique, incredibly beautiful, perfectly imperfect treasure. The miracle’s not just the awesomeness in aggregate, but that of each individual pearl. A reminder of my need to take it—good or bad—one day at a time. 

PHOTO: Katie Carrin Jewelry

HOW ‘BOUT YOU?
Let’s make this a conversation. How do you consider the good days in your life? How have you managed to weather great hardship and still feel gratitude for your better days? 

            “Those who look for seashells will find seashells; 
              those who open them will find pearls.”
               AL-GHAZALI