The Little Boy And The Big Wind

 

They say that, of all of Nature’s forces, the Hurricane is the most powerful.

 

“They” happen to be one of the bartenders that works at my favorite pub and a guy who has his own barstool, two down from the cash register in the corner, named “Boob”.

 

Don’t ask me. I have no idea.

 

My family always took car vacations every summer. We camped out in the Ely Minnesota State Park one summer and got run out of our camp in the middle of the night by a bear who, apparently, had a midnight craving for Corn Flakes. One year, we drove to Canada and my father almost drowned my brother by accidently smacking him on the head with a boat oar.

 

One summer, we drove to Delaware. My father’s aunt and uncle, Shirley and Rolf, lived there in a house right on a little inlet that emptied out into the Atlantic Ocean, and we were invited to spend two weeks there.

 

How fantastic was that? Sun…beaches…the Ocean…all the things IN the Ocean…that want to kill me…

 

Anyway, very young and blissfully ignorant of almost all the horrific wonders of the depths, I thought the whole situation was pretty cool. I was about ten or eleven-years-old, lean, wiry, strong. I was a very good swimmer. I learned to swim rather quickly; my father threw me into the deep end of a pool and shouted: “KICK YOUR FEET AND MOVE YOUR ARMS LIKE I SHOWED YOU!” and it turned out I was a natural. I was looking forward to my first time swimming in the waters of the Great Atlantic Ocean.

 

I had learned to water ski the summer previously and, if I do say so myself, for a person who readily acknowledges his stunning lack of sporting talent every single time the subject comes up, I could kick ASS on water skis. I could zip across the water on two skis, one ski, I ski barefoot and do a few flashy moves. As I had just learned, though, I was just looking forward to skiing on the ocean and my granduncle Rolf loved to drive his speedboat.

 

It was a lovely summer that year; big blue skies, calm waters, lots of things to do. I found myself thoroughly enjoying the beach, swimming out to the breakers and swimming back up to the beach, surreptitiously taking in the lovely girls in their bikinis. I had become aware of girls very early; I had my first kiss when I was five. Julie, literally the girl next door, grabbed me one day and kissed me on the lips.

 

That experience completely changed my life. I haven’t had a coherent thought ever since.

 

That first week was a fine experience, the only wrinkle was the news of a hurricane approaching land somewhere in the Carolinas.  It wasn’t until the end of the first week that the huge storm changed course and veered North, heading right for us.

 

Again: I was very young and very caught up in whatever was in front of my face. I was having a GREAT time, so much fun was had that I didn’t pick up on the nervous whispering of the adults and the trips into town for provisions.

 

The wind picked up on Friday and the sky began to cloud up. By Saturday, the beaches were closed, there were huge waves on the water, and ugly clouds bearing down on us.

 

The storm hit us around 4 AM on Sunday morning.

 

The sound was incredible: a mix of low, guttural rumblings, high pitched screaming winds, the rending and snapping of wood, loud thumps of airborne debris thrashing the side of the house. The cacophony sounded like a choir being slowly dipped in acid.

 

We had to move to the second floor of the house when the flood came streaming through the patio doors.

 

Up to this point, I don’t remember being scared. Maybe it was that wonderful delusion of invincibility that youth is prone to arrogantly entertain, but I certainly was excited by this stunning display of Nature’s fury…until part of the roof blew off.

 

For a minute, I was face-to-face with the dark, raw madness of an F-4 hurricane. I stood in the hallway frozen at the sight of a roaring monster; a murky, screaming hell of wind, rain, and flying wreckage before my father yanked me into the master bedroom, where everyone else had cowered. My brother, sister, and I were ordered to stay under the bed, and there I stayed, riding out the storm.

 

The wind shrieking and the panicked voices of my parents and my great-aunt and uncle lasted until I fell asleep.

 

Yes, that’s right. I slept through a hurricane.

 

A big chunk of it, anyway. It was night again when we left the master bedroom by climbing out the window and making our way down one of the drops in the roof.

 

The house sustained some pretty serious damage, but eventually Rolf and Shirley had the house repaired. In the meantime, the devastation around us was amazing, as if God Himself took his hand and brushed it across the landscape; houses smashed and strewn about, cars overturned, trees blown over.

 

My Mother and Father got us hotel rooms and my parents stayed the next week helping with the cleanup. I did what I could, but mostly the adults just had us swim off the dock Shirley and Rolf had in the inlet (the dock remained fastened during the storm. Rolf’s nifty speedboat, however, was a complete loss).

 

The only other thing I really remember about the trip was that my father had spent so much time outside working on the cleanup without a shirt that he got a very bad and very painful sunburn; a sunburn so bad it blistered. Dad was in agony driving us home, about two states away, and his back peeled for almost a week as the burn healed.

 

Just for the record, I have also been in a parking lot, hiding under a car as a tornado skipped down the main drag like God’s middle finger, and I have been in an earthquake.

 

What did I learn? Well, Nature is a fickle and sometimes psychotic bitch that wants to kill me. The Oceans are full of wonderous revulsions that want to kill me.

 

Everything wants to kill me.

 

But I’m not paranoid: The police told me that when they showed me their clandestine CCTV video of me singing in the shower without a care in the world!