Mother Nature
This week the big story in the United States is WATER & WIND, last week it was FIRE & WIND. I have on occasion been forced to war with WATER. Water always wins. Nature can be unrelenting and therein lies her power.
I was a young man playing in the Atlantic Ocean with 7 friends in Amagansett NY in the 1970’s when a riptide swept me away. I watched the shoreline shoot past me and was eventually spit onto the sand gasping and trembling about a half mile down the beach. “Didn’t anyone miss me?”, I asked after trudging back to the blankets. “Nope”, said the silence. I would like to note, none of those “friends” are still around.
The following year I was in the same beach house during Hurricane Belle. The wind was blowing so hard, my brother-in-law’s Chevy Vega’s windshield was scored by sand beyond repair. We had taken the car to the beach (because we were young idiots who would live forever) and walked the water-line to get away from the blowing sand. Suddenly the Eye of the Hurricane came by and everything changed. The sun came out, the wind stopped, and it was a normal day except for the churning frothy white-capped waves as far as the eye could see. Weird for sure. Lasted about 60 seconds. Nature can be a trickster.
I once flew into Denver to visit a Sales Office on a Sunday about 3 hours after a Tornado had touched down in the Office Mall I was to visit. My office was untouched but the building across the courtyard had half its brick facade blown off by the wind. When I arrived Monday morning a construction crew was beginning to take down the remaining bricks. When I left Tuesday 3PM they were STILL taking off the same number of bricks that Nature had taken off in about 2 seconds. Mother Nature is a force to be respected.
kongoboken 