Going...Going...Gone

Poem of the Day

FIRST BORN

A woman stands before me
an exchange from then till now
the little girl I used to know
hidden there, somehow.

The eyes that stared so solemnly
when just a little child
now look at me imploringly
as if to ask me why.

No answers can I give her
No knowledge I posses
Nothing I could say
would ever pass this test.

The knowledge she is seeking
rests within my heart
my love for her abides
and never will depart.

I'm nothing but a woman
and yet, I've done my best
to teach this child of mine
the meaning of success.

To live your life for others
sacrificing self
true meaning of your character
displays its self in this.

And so the story goes
as life revolves around
her child will surely ask
questions that astound.

The little girl I bore
all those years ago
now carries within her
a heart made of pure gold.

The Lighter Side Of Poteau: Occasionally, there were some funny things that happened in Poteau. One of these involved a tornado. I grew up in Oklahoma, but in the central part in what is known as "Tornado Alley". We don't mess around with weather there. Poteau is in Eastern Oklahoma and although they have tornados, they don't pay as much attention to them as central Oklahoma so you would hear the weatherman say something like, "There may be a tornado, we're not sure." There may be a tornado? What does that mean? Those words scared me. Also, the only Oklahoma station we got was one Tulsa channel. The rest of our TV viewing came out of Ft. Smith Arkansas and several years earlier, their downtown had nearly been destroyed by a tornado.

Anyway, one night in April of the first year we're in Poteau, it is storming cats and dogs. The news says there are thunderstorms, but that is all. It's around 12am and I'm watching the weather one last time. I don't trust them because the wind is whipping, lighting is striking all around and it's raining hard, but it's all I've got. The weatherman states that there is no severe weather, only thunderstorms. I finally turn off the TV and prepare to go to sleep. The wind is whipping harder now. This doesn't make me feel too safe because we live on Scott Ridge which is half way up Cavanal Mountain so we're up around 900 ft. The clouds are hanging real low around our house and I have an uneasy feeling. I'm laying there and all the sudden, my cat who is at the foot of my bed kind of cranes her head up and stares intently out the window. I know something is up just by watching her. I get up and go to the window.

Now, I have been in 4 tornados, one of which was an F4 and killed 7 people. I know what the roar of a tornado sounds like and I hear the roar. All the sudden, the pressure pushes the window in. It doesn't break, but hits me in the face. Our house is a two-story and it begins to vibrate and shake. My husband is just getting out of the shower and my kids have already gone to bed. I run to the door and start yelling at the kids to get downstairs, this is it. Three of my kids are in the attic bedroom and they come running out. One is across the hall and I have to keep telling him to get downstairs because he keeps asking me if I'm for real or just teasing. As I leave my bedroom, my cat is going right with me down the stairs and so is everyone else. My son leaps down all the stairs yelling at the top of his voice, "We're gonna die, we're gonna die." It is a mix of arms, legs, cats and one naked guy none of us have noticed yet. Our other cat, who is a huge fraidy cat, bolts out the cat door right into the storm.

Now we're all running and falling over each other and the house is shaking and vibrating and creaking loudly. We're all headed for a large closet under the stairs. Ok, we cram in including the cat. It's tight in there because a lot of other stuff is in there too. We're just inches apart. Now the sirens are going off in both Poteau and Wister, both of which we hear because we live in-between the two towns in a rural neighborhood. My husband and I are up front by the door and I hear the kids snickering. My youngest daughter is saying, "Yuck, Yuck" over and over again. I start looking around to see what's going on and notice that my husband is stark naked and trying to put on a pair of my shorts. He hasn't figured out yet that these are not his shorts, so he keeps trying to fit into them. He can't of course. His ankles are as far up as they will go. His rear is in plain view and he is jumping up and down trying to get these little shorts on and looking around because the kids snickering has turned into out-right laughter. He looks around the tight closet once more. The tornado sirens are blaring. Suddenly, he bursts out of the closet in all his naked glory yelling that if he is gonna die; he won't die naked with my shorts halfway up his legs and his ass showing. He streaks upstairs and comes back with his own bitching and asking why I put my shorts in his basket. (I didn't. In his haste, he made the mistake and grabbed my clothes.)

Now he's cranky because the kids are still snickering and my youngest daughter is asking why he was naked and why he was trying to put on Mama's shorts, didn't he know they were too little? The kids tease him about being "the streaker." I didn't notice, I don't think any of us paid attention as we were running down the stairs, but my husband had been entirely naked the whole time. When he felt the house shaking, he had just bolted. It was so funny! He didn't think so, but the rest of us still laugh about it. It's one of those situations that was utter chaos and if it had been filmed it would have been hilarious to watch.

We survived, but our shed was knocked off its foundation, siding ripped off and our roof lifted on one corner. We also lost our garage door. Trees were down all over the place and roof damage was everywhere. The silly weatherman called it a gustnado, but I know it wasn't.

My motto while we lived in Poteau, "If it wasn't for bad luck, we wouldn't have any luck at all."