We do this every this-time-of-the-year here across the Northeast, in varying amounts: preparing for a visit by one of any number of hurricanes that will either wreak untold and uncalculated havoc or just threaten to blow us all away and/or drown us in rain.
And when we look just slightly to our South, there will always be someone who got it worse than we did.
My wife spent a great part of her yesterday storm-proofing our yard--securing all the stuff (benches, feeders, bird baths) her boob of a husband walks by every day with open eyes and never sees.
The stuff, that, in a strong wind, gets blown right through a window or lifted over a fence after which I react with dumbfounded shock and incredulity because I am incapable of linking cause and effect in a timely manner for any practical purposes.
In a way it's good that she did that since I can recall being a small child, when Mom and Dad rented bungalows in Atlantic Highlands, watching hurricanes come in off the ocean while standing on the beach.
Their sheer power thrills me still. I don't know why.
My favorite part of The Wizard of Oz is when the house and everything else is lifted by the tornado and I used to wonder growing old (as I've never grown up) if you could really and truly ride a bicycle while in the funnel.
This is serious stuff for many people and I don't mean to trivialize it or minimize its might or its majesty. As a matter of fact, I'd point out I'm doing just the opposite. While many of us have already and/or continue to stockpile milk and toilet paper (that's how we roll here in New England, pun intended) because if you reach the magic number, nothing happens and Gravity's Rainbow passes over you,
I'm somehow comforted by the thought that there are forces more powerful than any we can create or unleash. And at some point on the horizon, silhouetted against an open sky, you, me, and the most powerful or wealthy men and women in the world look exactly the same as the eye of the storm descends upon us.
No matter who we are, what we own or do, we are all finally and fully equal and can only hope to hold on until the heavens clear. I'm just never too sure about the something good part....
-bill kenny
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