Trying to Reason with the Hurricane Season

Squalls out on the gulfstream
Big storms coming soon
I passed out in my hammock
God, I slept way past noon
Stood up and tried to focus
I hoped I wouldn't have to look far
I knew I could use a Bloody Mary
So I stumbled next door to the bar

I’ve found myself mentally looking over my shoulder the past couple of days. You know, like when you feel there’s a powerful force lurking out there just waiting for you to let your guard down.

No, I’m not paranoid. Really. You’re not paranoid if something actually is out to get you. In my memories their names read like a rogues’ gallery of malcontents:

Hugo – ’89
Emily – ’93
Fran – ’96
Dennis – ’99 (x2)
Floyd – ’99
Irene – ’99
Ivan – ’04
Katrina – ’05
Rita – ’05

This is a pretty kick-ass image of Rita (that bitch). Seriously,

it's basically covering the Gulf of Mexico.

There are a couple of other hurricanes I’ve been the fringes of, but their names are lost to me in the mists of time - and alcohol. Definitely alcohol.

Honestly, along with a desire to move closer to my family, the dream of moving somewhere that didn’t have a bull’s eye painted on it was a big part of my leaving Texas. After covering Katrina and living through and covering Rita, I was through with tropical cyclones.

Done.

Finished.

Never again.

We bitched and moaned up here when the power went out for a couple of hours or a day or two last month. But imagine what it’d be like if the greater D.C. area was without power for eight days ... and the farther reaches had to do without for weeks. Say end of September until Thanksgiving. That’s what happened to the town where I lived after Rita slammed into us on Sept. 23, 2005. Do you know how long it took me to break the habit of stopping at stoplights to looking both ways before pulling through the intersection? That’s what you do when the traffic signals don’t have power. (The answer: I sometimes still do it.)

I only spent a couple of days in Louisiana after Katrina, but I saw enough. I’m not downplaying what Louisiana and the people living there went through during and after Katrina. But the fact is Rita was a bigger and more powerful storm – the fourth most powerful hurricane ever – and I’m wondering when CNN is going to do it’s weekend-long coverage about the aftermath of the storm that flattened Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana.

Towns like Sabine Pass, Texas, and Johnsons Bayou, La., just vanished. Beaumont, where I lived and worked as a reporter, lost power around 2 a.m. on Sept. 24 and the lights didn't come back on until about 8 p.m. Oct. 1. The days were long and hot and the nights were pitch dark and eerily quiet. You really don't realize all the white noise (air conditioners, fluorescent lights etc.) that fills our lives ... until it's gone. On the plus side, you could really see the stars.

And now here comes Earl. Like your drunken uncle, all ready to spoil the big holiday weekend. Thankfully, unless you had plans of heading to the OBX or Ocean City, or up to Lawn Guyland or Bar Harbor, you shouldn’t have any problems.

But you know what? Even though I live in a hi-rise on top of a hill, I’m going to keep looking over my shoulder until our drunken fool of an uncle is well past. And then I’ll start looking for the “Rita – Five Years Later” news special.

But I won’t be holding my breath.

Happy 52nd!!

You ever have one of those "Did I leave the oven on?" thoughts?

Nagging at the back corner of my mind today was the thought "There's something I should be remembering." This, of course, did me little good because the same entity telling me I need to remember something was the same one forgetting what it is I was suppose to be remembering.

Thankfully, I've remembered.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

While it may not be a good reason for forgetting, I at least have one. My mom died coming up on nine years ago, and I've gone back and forth each year on the question of whether or not to call my dad. This year's easy, he's out of town and doesn't answer his cell. Ever. He only makes calls from it. So, I don't have to worry about that.

The question is this: What's the protocol on remembering/recognizing birthdays and anniversaries of people who've died? Especially anniversaries where one of the people is still alive and ticking?

Has it really been eight years?

I remember the day easily enough, Nov. 1, All Saints Day. That’s easy. But I had to stop and take a moment to remember exactly the year.

2001.

Eight years ago today me and my sisters, brothers, dad, brothers-in-law, sister-in-law and a future sister-in-law sat in one of those anonymous rooms hospitals seem to have in abundance, listening to the doctor. The news he had for us, while not unexpected, was still the sort you never want to hear.

Our mom, the woman who’d raised all five of us, who’d beaten cancer 12 years prior, and who was doing a pretty good job of beating it again, had fallen victim to what my friend The Doc would later describe as an “opportunistic infection.” She’d breathed something in during the previous week and that little bug had quickly taken advantage of an immune system weakened by chemo.


The doctor (as opposed to The Doc), gently laid out our slim options (option) and then withdrew to let the family talk amongst ourselves. As I said, the doctor’s news wasn’t unexpected, it was just the time to make a decision had come so much sooner than we’d expected. Even though we knew what the decision had to be, we still took time to talk about it.

We had but one request: Could the doctors wait one day? One more day would make it Nov. 1. One more day would make it not Oct. 31. One more day would make it not our sister’s birthday. On this we were agreed.

My dad got up, walked to the door and started down the hallway toward the room where his wife of 43 years lay to tell her doctors the family’s decision.
The door closed and it was just us, the five kids, three spouses and a future wife. The silence, as you’d expect in such a situation, was deafening.

And then one of us, and to this day I couldn’t tell you who it was, broke the silence in a way that brought a little light into a very dark day.

“Well, there go a lot of secrets.”

I smile even now thinking about it, because it was the truth. Our mom had been our secret keeper. More than 100 years of childhood secrets would now be forever safe. Not that any of them were really bad. Some instances of drunk and stupid – my dad knew my sister split her chin open during homecoming one year. What he didn’t know was that prior to putting in 20-plus stitches the doctors probably didn’t need to give her anything for the pain since she’d had an entire bottle of Jack right before she fell. A minor brush or two with the law – like when … well, we’ll leave those to your imagination. Bad report cards. Letters from teachers. Emergency loans (OK, grants) to pay the rent because maybe, just maybe, you used the money she gave you last week to buy a keg. For that spring break trip you told them, really Mom, you weren't going on.

The list goes on and on and on. All those things you thought you got away with, trust me, your mom knows. That’s her job. The good ones give you enough rope to go out into the world thinking you’re on your own. But that rope, instead of being there to hang you, is there to hang on to. It’s a safety line back to mom, one you can always tug on twice knowing there’ll be someone there to pull you back and rescue you from your stupidity.

Those of you who’ve lost your moms know this. Those of you who still have your moms, well, you might want to think about giving them a call to say thanks for keeping your secrets.

They Came in Peace

Some of you may recognize this post. It’s pretty much the same one I wrote this on this day last year, but it bears repeating. Changes for timeliness are in brackets.

I still remember walking out of church [26] years ago today and hearing the news that someone had driven a truck loaded with explosives into a Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. I was young then, still in middle school in fact, but the memory sticks with me to this day. The attack made a powerful impression on a young boy.

A few short years later, I found myself stationed at Camp Lejeune, home of Battalion Landing Team 1/8 (a.k.a. 1st Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment), and the memories of the attack on that unit were still vivid for my fellow Marines.

Still raw.


I spent almost six years at Lejeune between the Marine Corps and working as a reporter there after college. It wasn't a bad place if you had to be stuck somewhere in (or near) the military, and the 14-or-so miles of beach put it way ahead of the alternative just up the road, Fort Bragg.

Through all of that time one of my most favorite places was the Beirut Memorial. Actually, there are three memorials to the 241 Marines, sailors and soldiers killed Oct. 23, 1983: The wall, a plaque and a living memorial of 241 Bradford pear trees.

According to the Camp Lejeune Web site: “At the Northwoods Park Middle School, a group of classes, taught by Mrs. Martha Warren, initiated a support project to write the families of the men who had lost their lives. These students also helped to raise funds for the memorial trees and became a focal point in this effort. A ninth-grader auctioned her Cabbage Patch doll and raised $1,500 for the project. One tree was planted for each lost serviceman along Lejeune Boulevard and the completed tree project was dedicated on March 24, 1984.”

The gray granite wall of the memorial resembles those the Marines saw every day on patrol throughout Beirut – broken and jagged. Set in the middle of the wall is a statue of a single Marine. Rifle in hand, dog tags hanging out he stares out into a distant horizon. The wall beside him bears the simple phrase, carved deep into the Georgia stone:

They Came In Peace.

It’s a quiet place, the memorial is, tucked under a towering cathedral roof of Carolina pines and animated only by the wind whispering through the trees and the distant rush of Highway 24. But no matter the time of year you visit the memorial, there are always little tributes placed at the base of the wall. Flags, Teddy bears, a bottle of Jack or a six of Pabst with one or two of the tops popped.

[Eleven] years ago, I visited the memorial about a week after the 15th anniversary of the attack. Tucked between the slabs was a letter. A letter a 16- or 17-year-old girl wrote to her father telling him how her life had been going since she last saw him when she was just 1 or 2. It also told him how much she still missed him every day.

So, if you have a free moment today in amongst the hustle and bustle of your life, perhaps you could spend it thinking about these young men [and the many who’ve joined them since] who never had the chance to become old.

Semper Fi.