Pontotoc Storm Strong Winds Damage Property
"You need to stay with us. That way we can all get blown away together," I teased, knowing she would recognize what was our mother’s strange logic regarding togetherness during stormy weather. "No, I believe we need to be separated. Some of us might survive, if we’re not all together," Sarah shared, playing the odds. Nonetheless she didn’t leave right away, as it was raining relatively hard at the time. I found a radar map of the weather system on my computer and showed her how the worst of the storm would miss Pontotoc by several miles to the east. Sarah pointed to a second line of thunderstorms near the Tennessee line and noted they could spell trouble for us later in the evening. Sarah went home before ten o’clock, but Rayanne and Anna stayed, because they would have driven through some severe weather had they chosen to drive to Belmont. I continued to monitor the approaching storm for the next half-hour or so as everyone else prepared to go to bed. Earlier, we had heard reports of trees being blown down in Tupelo and a large crane being toppled at North Mississippi Medical Center. I can’t predict the weather any better than the next person, but radar indicated the second line of storms would be intense. Therefore, when I slipped into bed around 11:00 p.m., I did so fully clothed, right down to my shoes. "No sense getting undressed, if the weather’s going to be bad," I reasoned. Sure enough around eleven thirty, the rain came down in earnest, and shortly thereafter the power went off. I sensed the power might be off for a while, so a few minutes later, I got up to look for a candle. Rayanne and Anna heard me fumbling around and soon joined me. Looking out the bay window of the kitchen and noting the limbs of the trees being violently thrashed by the rain and wind, Anna exclaimed, "I’ve never seen it this bad, before." "I have," I responded trying to reassure her, but I didn’t tell her it was when the tornado came through in 2001. "It ’s just a severe thunderstorm, we’ll be all right." Around midnight, Jason walked over from his place. He had noticed our candlelight and came to check on us. We sat around the living room talking about the weather and occasionally stopping to listen to Barbara’s snoring in the bedroom. Anna continued to stare into the darkness beyond our windows. "Hey y’all! I see a light or something," she related, pointing toward the west end of Dogwood Circle. What she saw was a fire truck spotlighting various houses in our subdivision. The heavy rains had subsided when we walked out into the driveway to see why the fire truck was in the neighborhood. "Look, a tree’s down in Mr. Ricky’s yard," Anna stated. In the darkness it was difficult to see, but with the lights from the fire truck and the flash of lightning we could see large limbs on the ground. After the fire truck drove past our house, Jason, Rayanne, Anna, and I decided to ride around town and inspect the damages, while Barbara slept. "Shouldn’t we tell Nana where we’re going?" Anna asked. "No," I posed, "Let her think she’s been left behind following the Rapture." Anna suggested we check on her dad’s neighborhood, but rather than take the back road behind our house, I drove first to downtown Pontotoc before heading toward 8th Street. Everywhere we drove, the electricity was off, and leaves and small limbs carpeted most roads. As we turned into the subdivision to check on Anna’s house, we noticed a tree blocking 8th Street at roughly the property line of the house Barbara and I once owned. Satisfied that no damage had occurred at Anna’s house, we drove down Rosanne Street to bypass the fallen tree and would have taken the back road over to Dogwood Circle, but a second fallen tree on 8th Street blocked our way. Retreating to downtown, we continued on Main Street and turned left onto Oxford Street where we noticed homes and businesses had electricity. As we turned off West Oxford Street onto Railroad Avenue, the contrast of lighted versus unlighted was quite evident. "Hey, Anna!" I stated, in a foreboding tone. "We’re entering the dark side." "Don’t say that Daa!" About then, we passed the home of a Black family, and standing next to the road were three individuals barely distinguishable from the blackness of the pavement and the night. Anna screamed in terror when she spied them in our headlights. We screamed, too, but with laughter at Anna’s frightfulness. Back at home, our electricity was still off as we made preparations to go to bed for the second time in one night. Barbara and I have a couple of old clock radios in the bedroom neither of which have a nine-volt battery to maintain the clock during a power outage. Each clock is plugged into a battery backup power supply beneath our bed. Knowing that Barbara would likely wake up smothering from a lack of cool air, I plugged a portable electric fan into the battery backup device and had just settled down when the electricity came back on. So, I got out of bed, unplugged the fan, took it back to Barbara’s bathroom, and climbed into bed, again. Wouldn’t you know it, the electricity went off again? I muttered something and stumbled back into the bathroom, got the fan, crawled under the bed and was trying to plug it into the power supply when the electricity was restored. Thankfully, it’s been on ever since. The next day, it was evident that our neighborhood was one of the hardest hit in all of Pontotoc. Several Bradford pear trees were so badly damaged as to require them being removed completely, and two large pine trees were uprooted or broken by strong winds. One pine lay across the roof of one neighbor’s garage, and the other pine narrowly missed the sun porch of another’s house. Small clumps of oak leaves were all over our yard, but apart from a large limb broken away from our cedar in the backyard, our property was unscathed by the fierce storm. And, it all happened on a dark and stormy night.
Anna's Travels Reader Wins Souvenir Several months ago, I asked readers of this newsletter to guess where in the world my granddaughter, Anna Butler, would choose to travel, since her great grandmother had offered her an expense paid trip anywhere in the world of her choosing. There were several readers who responded, and I doubt my promise of a souvenir from Anna’s travels was an inducement for anyone to participate. I should have written down the various suggestions, but I didn’t, and the only places I remember folks recommending were the western United States, England, and the European continent.
Anna chose to travel to England and Scotland. Before she left, I gave Anna
twenty dollars and asked her to find a suitable souvenir for me to give away.
Since she would be traveling with an aunt, her grandmother, and her great
grandmother, I figured they could help her select something appropriate.
Anna returned with a brass, Christmas tree ornament finished in 24-carat
gold and made in China. The ornament contains replicas of various London
landmarks and symbols of royalty and is shown
here. Of the two persons who suggested Anna travel to England, only one subscribes to this newsletter and is eligible to receive the souvenir. Congratulations go to Gordon Sansing of Forest, MS for his winning suggestion. Having seen the souvenir, I only regret I didn’t give Anna enough money to buy two, one to give away and one to keep.
Food Phobias Milk & Cherries One thing I’ve learned in reading Reminisce Extra magazine is that I’m not the only person whose mother suffered from a phobia that her children or grandchildren would eat a poisonous food by accident or through ignorance. One contributor to Reminisce Extra recalled that his grandmother warned, "Never eat cherries and drink milk together." Supposedly, the combination was poisonous and would surely result in sickness, possibly death. The contributor doubted that the two foods, which independently eaten were safe, could be harmful when combined. He ate some cherries and drank some milk and suffered no ill effects, but he never told his grandmother. I suppose his grandmother never had any vanilla ice cream to top a cherry pie or cobbler. I can thank my brother, Fred, for once chewing the leaf of a caladium, which almost gave him a convulsion and did throw our mother into hysterics. So, when I came along, Mama was careful to hold Fred’s behavior as an example of what not to do. My mother never warned me about cherries and milk, but then cherries were not as plentiful in our neighborhoods as plums or berries were. Still, I doubt she had ever been told the combination of milk and cherries could be deadly. Yet, somewhere along the way she picked up an admonition almost as strange. She never explained where it came from, but she always warned us not to drink milk while eating fish. And, for much of my life, I never tried the fish-milk food combination. However, once I moved away from home and got married, I was encouraged to try foods that Mama never cooked or foods prepared differently than hers. Of the foods that Mama fixed, few cooks have ever rivaled hers, with respect to taste. Until my first kidney stone, I drank milk by the gallon. Milk was my favorite beverage. However, the pain and suffering of that first kidney stone combined with the knowledge the stone was a calcium deposit convinced me to reduce my calcium intake. I don’t think I drank a single glass of milk for the first year following my first kidney stone. I can’t be certain when I first ate the forbidden combination of milk and fish, but I’m sure that it occurred a few years after my first kidney stone. Having suffered no ill effects from eating the forbidden combination, I continued to occasionally consume fish and milk. All went well, until I attended a store’s Christmas Party in Tupelo, MS, one evening in mid December. Barbara and I were guests of the owners of the Sunflower Food Store in Houston, MS. They had chosen Shoney’s as the site to host their party. I still don’t care for most of the items on Shoney’s menu, but I’ve always liked their desserts. My favorite entrée has always been fried shrimp, which is what I ordered that night. I also remember eating a salad from the salad bar, and for some reason, I chose milk for my beverage. Shortly after finishing what was a delicious meal, I felt nauseous and excused myself from the table. By the time I made it to the Men’s Room, I was sick. I’ll spare readers the graphic nature of the details, but I should point out that when I’m really nauseous I tend to "puke my guts out." As I stood before a lavatory, washing the perspiration from my face, I noticed my face was severely splotched. "Must be from all the straining," I thought, concerned, but not overly so. I must have looked horribly when I returned to the party, as everyone wanted to know what was wrong with me and why my face was splotched. I explained that something I ate didn’t agree with me, but I felt fine at the moment. The storeowners, who had invited me to the party, insisted I go to the emergency room at the hospital, but I managed to avoid doing so. My wife also thought I should see a doctor, but I explained doctors are for the sick, and I was no longer sick. There’s a stubborn streak in the Carter-Crausby gene pool, and it showed itself that night. Though greatly faded, the splotches were still visible almost a week later. Everyone I told of my ordeal had a theory as to what had happened. Most believed I had a touch of food poisoning or else ate something that produced an allergic reaction. Yes, it could have been the fish and milk combination that did me in, but in this case it was shrimp and milk. I was the only member of the party that became sick after eating, and I believe whatever happened was a result of something I selected from the salad bar. I should point out, I’ve not since been sick as a result of dining at a Shoney’s restaurant. And, for the record, I’ve not since eaten shrimp and drank milk at the same meal, either. Maybe, Mama was on to something? Maybe.
Bodock Beau Mothers From History We found the following posted on www.gcfl.net. Thanks for sharing go to Larry Young. Mothers From History COLUMBUS' MOTHER: "I don't care what you've discovered, you still could have written!" MICHELANGELO'S MOTHER: "Can't you paint on walls like other children? Do you have any idea how hard it is to get that stuff off the ceiling?" NAPOLEON'S MOTHER: "All right, if you aren't hiding your report card inside your jacket, take your hand out of there and show me." ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S MOTHER: "Again with the stovepipe hat? Can't you just wear a baseball cap like the other kids?" MARY'S MOTHER: "I'm not upset that your lamb followed you to school, but I would like to know how he got a better grade than you." ALBERT EINSTEIN'S MOTHER: "But it's your senior picture. Can't you do something about your hair? OY! Styling gel, mousse, something...?" GEORGE WASHINGTON'S MOTHER: "The next time I catch you throwing money across the Potomac, you can kiss your allowance good-bye!" THOMAS EDISON'S MOTHER: "Of course I'm proud that you invented the electric light bulb. Now turn it off and get to bed!" PAUL REVERE'S MOTHER: "I don't care where you think you have to go, young man, midnight is past your curfew." Unlikely Motivational Posters 1) If you do a good job and work hard, you may get a job with a better company someday. 2) It's only unethical if you get caught. 3) The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budget cuts. 4) We put the "k" in "kwality." 5) If something doesn't feel right, you're not feeling the right thing. 6) Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity! 7) A person who smiles in the face of adversity probably has a scapegoat. 8) ABANDON ALL HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE. 9) We make great money! We have great benefits! We do no work! We are union members! 10) 2 days without a Human Rights Violation! 11) Your job is still better than asking, "You want fries with that?" 12) If at first you don't succeed, try management.
13) The floggings will continue until morale improves. Share this article with a friend.
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It was
a dark and stormy night. Really, it was! And it happened on the night of
July 14, 2004. Rayanne and Anna had driven in from Belmont bringing pictures
from Anna’s travels. Sarah was also here. It was Sarah who first became
alarmed over the weather warnings scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen,
and when Channel 9 in Tupelo interrupted regular programming to warn viewers
in western Pontotoc County and Tupelo of strong winds and heavy rain, Sarah
was ready to go to her house.
