Grandma and the Tornado

This is Chapter 28 - “Grandma and the Tornado” from my upcoming book, “Parkinson’s & Recreation 3 - The No Parkinson’s Zone”

“There is a safe spot within every tornado. My job is to find it.”

—David Copperfield

“It's not like we're infested with them on a continual basis. But you learn to live with the warnings. And you learn what to do if one is coming your way. And then you cross your fingers and make the best judgments you can.”

—Mick Cornett

I have lived in Oklahoma my entire life…in the area known as Tornado Alley. Even though we lived in this region known for its many storms, actual tornado sightings were few and far between. Even when they were seen, we knew how to respond…mostly. So used to storms were we that on one occasion, Dad sent me to the pasture to fetch the milk cows. I will never forget saying these words, “But, Daddy, I can see four tornados!” And I was not exaggerating! I could see a funnel cloud extending down from the clouds miles away in all four cardinal directions! His response? “They’re not heading this direction and they’ll not make it here before you get the cows up. Now git to work!”

Reluctantly, I obeyed as I walked tentatively out the back gate of the barnyard and headed toward the pasture, hoping and praying they were not all the way in the back pasture. And, of course, they were! At least I had the cow-dog, Tillie, to walk with me. She did not seem to be fearful in the least, so this put me somewhat at ease, but as we plodded with purpose to get there and back with the cattle as quickly as possible my thoughts could not help but run rampant. Like an annoying rerun of the same commercial on TV, images from past on-the-scene newscasts after tornados were running through my mind.

Call it cliche’ or call it stereotyping, but all I could envision were the many interviews I had witnessed by those who had had their trailer homes (I call them tornado magnets) destroyed by a twister. Either ladies in curlers or men in their underwear, often with missing teeth, each saying the same thing as if in scripted tornado lingo, “It sounded just like a freight train and the next thang I knew, we was trapped under the kitchen wall!” Heading toward the back pasture, listening intently for the tell-tale wails of a wind-borne freight train, I found the cows and made it home without incident. That was just one day of many through the years in the life of one who dwells in Tornado Alley! That being said, there is one day that stands out above all other days in my memory as the most compelling of all my encounters with tornados…

Grandma Jernigan’s trailer home was located a mere hundred feet or so to the southeast of our farmhouse. At the northeastern corner of this little trailer house, my Dad had placed the small doghouse he had built for the bird dog named Buster that he kept chained there. Directly in front and to the left of Grandma’s home was a long, narrow barn where Dad worked on cars, trucks, tractors and various and sundry pieces of farm equipment that locals would bring for repair. This garage was in addition to the one in town that Dad ran with Leroy Cook.

This at-home workshop was spacious enough for two cars at a time. The floor of this workspace was dirt packed firm by the many hours Dad spent trampling it down as he worked on the engine repairs. This workspace extended into a longer room toward the west. This room was lined with Dad’s tools from floor to ceiling. The only windows were on the west end of the long structure. Overhead, an eight-foot fluorescent light was suspended directly above the floor and occupying the bulk of that floor space was the pool table my parents had surprised us with the Christmas before, making this room one of our favorite places to be.

My parents had tried finding a place for the massive table in our house, but it took up so much space that it was impractical to keep it there. They threw around the idea of using the big hay barn to house the table, but this was nixed due to the need for a level floor, of which the dirt floor of the hay barn was not. This, of course, made the work barn the most logical choice, due to the concrete floor on the west end.

It was a summer day. Warm and breezy with a few clouds in the distance, but nothing to be concerned with. So normal was this day that my brothers were working in the hay field across the ditch between the front and back pasture. The middle pasture was distinguished by the Conservation Era terraces that gently rolled across the field from side to side. Paul was mowing the tall grass and Bob was raking the grass that had been mown the previous day. Because this particular hay meadow was full of yellow hop clover, I had been relieved of hay-duty. Normally, I was the rake-man, but the last time I had raked the dry hay, my body had responded with a very intense allergic reaction: swollen eyes; scratchy, swollen throat; an itchy rash on my skin, coupled with congested lungs had ensured my banishment from the hay fields that week.

Needless to say, I was not very heart-broken over this turn of events. Happy to get out of such hot, sweaty work, I determined I would prove my worth around the house by doing some inside chores. Since my parents were gone into town for errands and had taken my little brother, Sam, with them, I was gloriously left alone to do my work out of the heat of the day. As I went about cleaning the kitchen and doing the dishes, as my Mom had instructed me, I could hear the faint and familiar sounds emanating from Grandma’s piano. Often during the late afternoon, Grandma Jernigan would sit at her piano and sing hymns and songs of worship to the Lord. These times I found very peaceful and comforting. Such it was this day. Peaceful and comforting…for a moment.

After only a few minutes of work, I decided to go to the laundry room to take the empty pop bottles out to the front porch so Dad or Mom would see them and remember to take them to be redeemed. In those days, you could get money for returning used glass soda bottles. As I entered this room, I could hear Grandma’s piano even more clearly since the windows facing her house were open to allow the coolness of the breeze to help vent the house from the summer heat. Without warning, the sweet tones of my Grandma’s music began to be drowned out by an ever-increasing sound of wind. The gentle breeze was no longer a breeze. It had suddenly been replaced by the sound of a mighty roar of wind! Growing with intensity, the roar of this wind became so deafening I could no longer hear anything but the sound that roared like a freight train barreling through!

Rushing out the back door to find out what was making all the noise, my eyes were met with a most astounding sight. Right before my eyes, that workshop barn where we kept the pool table, lifted slowly into the air! Watching in dumbfounded stupor, I saw the barn lift higher and higher before turning completely upside down and crashing violently to the ground in what seemed like millions and millions of shattered pieces! Completely obliterated and unrecognizable, the barn and all its contents, including our awesome pool table, were no more!

I had not had any other warning than the sudden rise of wind that day. All I knew was that somehow a twister had dipped down from the sky and had lifted the barn from the ground, rising as if my Dad had somehow attached rockets and boosted it from the earth! All this had happened so unbelievably quick that I had little time to be afraid, but when I was able to understand what had just taken place, fear soon took over. It was replaced, though, by the need to protect my little brothers who were out in the hay field, utterly exposed and without shelter! Without thinking, I went into full-fledged big-brother mode and ran as fast as I could toward the hay meadow!

I came to the fence between the house and barnyard and leapt right over it. Coming to the fence separating the barnyard from the front pasture, I did the same thing, feeling superhuman and operating somewhere outside of what was normal for me. Spying Bob’s head bobbing up and down on the International Harvester, my one goal was in getting to him with the warning, “Tornado! Take cover!” Of course, he did not hear me at first over the din of the engine, but when he saw me, he stopped. Again I said, “There’s a tornado! We need to take cover!”

From Bob’s expression, I could tell he thought I must be out of my mind, especially as he glanced from my face to look the direction I had been pointing and then back to my face with one of those “‘are-you-out-of-your-mind’” little-brother looks. By this time, I had been able to flag Paul down from where he was mowing. As he hopped down from the old Massey Ferguson, he asked, “What’s going on?”

Thinking to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I reiterated what I had just said to Bob. “There’s a tornado! We need to take cover!” Giving me that same look of “my-brother-has-lost-it” as Bob had just done, Paul simply said, “Where?”

By this time, I was at my wits end with the lack of seriousness with which they were treating such a dire situation. I said with great emphasis, “The barn, the garage, the pool table! They’re all gone! A tornado smashed them all to smithereens!”

They still did not believe me, Paul chiming in with, “It got only the little barn?” As I looked back to take stock of the damage, I could clearly see that none of the other buildings had apparently been damaged. The main house was still visible. The main barn was still there. The only thing that could not be seen clearly from our vantage point was Grandma’s trailer, and at just that moment, Paul asked, “Is Grandma okay?” Grandma! How could I have forgotten Grandma?! But I had!

Running back toward the house with the same level of intensity that had carried me out to the pasture, I prayed, “Lord, please protect my Grandma! Please keep her safe! Please, Lord! Please!”

Clearing the same fences I had cleared on the way to my brothers, I leapt again consumed with the need to get to Grandma’s side and help her out of the rubble! But the only rubble was where the barn had been. The trailer house seemed to be perfectly intact! “Thank You, Lord!” I spoke in prayer as I raced around the front of the trailer and up onto the porch my Dad, my brothers and I had built for her. My two little brothers trailing behind, I got to the front door. As I turned the knob to open the door, I realized it was locked.

Frantically, I began pounding on the door yelling, “Grandma! Are you in there? Grandma, are you alright?!” Placing my ear next to the door to hear her response, I could tell she was shuffling toward the door, obviously not in much of a hurry. Finally coming to the door, I felt it gently open.

As she peeked out the door, she had not noticed the debris that used to be the barn directly in front of her home. “What is it, son?” she asked. Stepping back from the doorway so she could get an unobstructed view, she looked first at my little brothers and then to the place where the barn used to be and asked incredulously, “What have you boys done?!”

“No, Grandma! It wasn’t us! It was a tornado! A tornado, Grandma! Didn’t you see it? Didn’t you hear it?”

“What tornado?” she innocently asked. My brothers and I could not believe our ears! “You didn’t hear or see anything, Grandma?” I asked.

“Well…a few minutes ago, I thought I heard a ruckus outside…but I thought is was just Buster dragging his chain against the back of the house.”

Almost as if on cue, my parents and youngest brother, Sam, pulled into the driveway, dodging debris as looks of bewilderment enveloped their faces. They, too, could not believe what they were seeing and they, too, wondered what could have happened. My dad, asking as his mother did, “What have you boys done?”

That day proved the unpredictability of Oklahoma weather and it proved the power of determination to reach the ones you love when facing danger, and it proved that God must have a sense of humor! The only other people to see the tornado dip down from the small front that had blown through were the neighbors who lived almost a mile to the southeast of us, at last corroborating my almost implausible story! Thus the saga of “Grandma and the Tornado”…

Dennis Jernigan

Photo courtesy of https://pixabay.com/images/download/pixel1-tornado-657633_1920.jpg