Here in sleepy old Wooster, a town with some 28,000 people and 40 churches - a town so conservative that George W. would probably be considered a Pinko - the Lord hit hard yesterday afternoon. I left work at 5:00 pm with a gray sky overhead, gripped by the mugginess that crawls across your skin. Within five minutes, I was being hit by 70 mph winds, wayward small branches, and rattling rain.
As I accelerated to avoid a large fir tree dropping behind me, I swerved to evade a rolling branch about the size of my car hood. Seconds later, I hit an intersection where the lights were now out and several cars were blocked by another fallen tree.
I peeled right. Another left-right swerve helped me avoid two new arboreal blockages, while all the time I had to keep an upward eye for potential power line disintegration. A glance to the left revealed another tree across a road.
Needless to say, five minutes later, I made it home and hit the automatic garage doors to shut out the collapsing world.
What a rush!
So what's the moral of the tale? Well, as I was leaving work, I remember thinking, Hey, maybe I could have come on the bike today - it doesn't look too bad!
The prediction had been for severe storms "later in the day" and I had heeded the warning. If I'd been on my bike, I'm not sure I would have fared quite as well on the trip home.
Today, roads are closed, clean-up crews are working, and power is out. No floods, thank goodness. But every now and again, it's interesting how Mother Nature reminds us that our occasionally switching to being temporary Cagers is not necessarily a bad thing.
Siggy
