Dill City, OK. Smack-dab in the middle of both the Bible Belt and Tornado Alley, which makes for a lot of blustering and much wind. From 4th to 12th grades, I attended the Dill City Elejuniorhigh School - - mind you, that there is one fine ejimication I done got. So there was no official foreign language department - - don't make me no nevermind, cuz I speak me fluent Okie.
One linguistic lesson was learned early: the AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEE! response to a coming twister. Our school was outfitted with a huge, dank, horrible storm cellar that we'd occasionally have to populate when the sky grew dark and the air became oddly still.
We moved to Dill City in 1971, four years after a category 4 tornado had killed four people near the town. Five years before that, another category 4 storm plowed right through the tiny burgh and leveled a number of homes - - folks were still talking about those twisters when we moved to Dill, but of course we couldn't understand them until we learned to speak Okie.
While the AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEE! response seemed to make a lot of sense, my brother and I particularly found tornados fascinating and would stand out on the porch watching 'em in the near-ish distance - - they were completely relentless, undeterred by ANY thing. People tended to anthropomorphize them.....
....including my parents. October 9, 2001. A tornado plowed through Cordell, OK, a town of about 3,000 that lies eight miles north of Dill City. Cordell is where my dad had his law practice for about 30 years - - at the time the tornado hit, his offices were sited outside of town, disturbingly near the Cordell cemetery (guess it was a fine location to drum up estate business...).
On October 9, 2001, my dad was at work and my mom, his legal secretary for most of those 30 years, was right there by his side. They typically had a radio on and tuned to a local station to keep up with news and the latest in country music - - suddenly, the emergency preparedness signal started to drone, and an announcer hurriedly relayed that a tornado was on the ground south of Cordell and was moving north. Maw and Paw decided to sit tight, watching out their north-facing window as the sky gained that characteristic duskiness.
As they gazed open-mouthed, the trees and wheatfields became unnaturally still and then turned into whirling dervishes - - the tornado was almost right on top of the 'rents. It entered their view - - it moved into a field across the road from Dad's office - - it stayed there, spitting out corrugated tin roof pieces and farm equipment. Mom and Dad said goodbye to each other, thinking that this was the end - - the thing was gonna come back and get 'em. When they told the story later, they said that the tornado looked like it was thinking, as if it had a malevolent consciousness.
And then it kept moving northward and spared them.
Tornados continue to fascinate me - - the fact that WIND, that invisible movement of air through which we pass our hands and other body parts on a regular basis, can work up sufficient power to lift houses and cars and trailers and flatten entire cities. They are in the most literal sense a force of nature that has no time for man or his puny erections (like buildings and stuff, you know) and achievements. As aptly named Kansas would sing to you, all we are is dust in the wind.....and as Dorothy would tell you as she clicked her heels together, there's no place like home - - with or without tornados and Southern Baptists.
Do the sympathy and the "Never again!" outcries from the U.S. extend to this little Lebanese boy injured in Beirut? Do they extend to the Iraqi civilians who are dying or losing family and friends every day? How about the Afghanis? What makes them different from 33 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech?
