The scale of the tornado strikes across the south is breathtaking, and I know we are all deeply sympathetic to the families who have experienced terrible losses. Even for a people familiar with cyclones it is unthinkable to picture a mile-wide funnel bearing down on your town.
I’ve lived several places in the Midwest, and in each one I was given the assurance by the locals that “they call this area ‘Tornado Alley’.” I’m a coward when it comes to physical danger, but for the benefit of my New York friends and relatives I would adopt an air of brave resignation about the possibility of having to face a line of twisters.
“Yes, it is very dangerous out on the open prairie. Trouble could reach from the clouds at any moment. We wait and watch.”
This is an easy pose to adopt when, like me, you have never actually seen a tornado.
Dorothy Gale’s stoic Kansas farm family has long been the model – if a tornado comes straight for the house you stop your work long enough to get into the cellar, then come out to pick up the pieces. If you get caught above ground, ride it out in the house, but keep a window open so you can watch the scenery fly past. If it catches you on your bike, keep pedaling. We may have to call the doctor if you get a bump on the head, and we’ll all stand around squeezing our hankies until you come around, but then it will be time to finish the chores.
Nonsense, all of it.
What happened in Mississippi and Alabama is the stark reality of the mega-storm. There’s nowhere to run and not many good options. Let’s hope this is not the “new normal” for springtime weather. And as for sudden natural disasters, it’s becoming clear that no one has cornered the market. It seems like every place on the globe has it’s own special flavor of impending calamity.
We even managed to come up with an earthquake in Minnesota yesterday. To be exact, the 2.5 magnitude temblor was centered on the southwestern edge of Alexandria, near the airport, at about 2:20 am. There was no damage reported aside from the emotional distress of those who found themselves too excited about the royal wedding to go back to sleep.
An earthquake is far from a typical Minnesota experience. Paul Walsh wrote in the Star Tribune that other earthquakes have hit the state in 1975, 1981 and 1994. Adding the one in Alexandria yesterday, there have now been as many Minnesota centered earthquakes as there have been Vikings Super Bowl appearances, and all with no lasting effect.
I guess we can be grateful for that. It becomes increasingly apparent that we have nothing to complain about.
Resolved: I’ll drop the tornado martyrdom from here on out, and will try to resist any temptation to tell people from far away that Minnesota “is in an active seismic zone”. But it will require a major psychological shift to end my pitiful wailing whenever we get even a little bit of cold winter weather. Thank goodness we will always have a legitimate gripe when it comes to the Vikings.
Trail Baboon 
Sans question for us?
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Clyde, I couldn’t think of a reasonable question today. Fatigue? Perhaps.
I should have tried this:
“Is it necessary to always ask a question?”
Discuss!
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That sort of implies, Dale, that your questions are usually reasonable!
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How can we get off topic if we do not have a specific topic?
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do you like green grapes or red grapes better?
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I like grapes that have been squished, left to hang about in a dark container for awhile, and turned into a tasty dark red liquid.
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me too
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
I hope there is no disaster today. I gauge the level of disaster anywhere by CNN and ANderson Cooper’s presence or lack of presence at the site of said disaster. AC360–The Voice of Disaster!
I’m not sure what that means for 60 Minutes now that he does stories for them, too.
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That’s a nice essay, Dale, and its conclusion shows that you have come a long way in your spiritual evolution. I have friends who literally cannot imagine how it is possible to live in this state, given our weather. And like many Minnesotans, I’m guilty of telling stories about Minnesota winters that terrify the outsiders.
I got a lot of fun out of a cold spell a few years ago that came close to tying the state’s all-time cold weather record. TV meteorologists told us how we could go out in that deeply sub-zero weather with a saucepan of boiling water. Throwing that hot water in such cold air caused a strange whup! sound and the water would freeze before it hit the ground. Friends in California who heard that story probably had visions of the saucepan being frozen in the air, stuck in space by a column of ice reaching to the ground.
Whining about Minnesota weather is a sort of birthright. But your spiritual evolution, Dale, has carried you to a place where you are too psychically balanced to gnash your teeth with self-pity. Along with Peter Mayer, we can possibly admit that everything is holy now and we don’t really have it so bad here! Let it be our dirty little secret that our winters are nothing we can’t adapt to, and meanwhile we all have the pleasure of living in a state where something like TB is possible. I count my blessings.
But . . . Christian Ponder??? What WERE they thinking???
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Yes, Steve, this is a terrible prospect for football fans, who value quick thinking and celebrate instinct over deliberation.
Since “Ponder” as a verb means “to weigh in the mind with thoroughness and care,” football people will naturally assume that “Ponder” as a quarterback’s name means “sacked while trying to decide where to throw.”
I can’t wait to hear the play-by-play guys say “Dropping back … Ponder!”, “Ponder in the pocket”, “Ponder rolling right” and “Ponder over center.”
It gives one pause.
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I’ve been pondering this all the way back from Iowa. HMMMM
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they are getting it with both barrels. my sons are real upset that they committed 40 million to a second class athelete. the news says it was the most wasted pick in the draft. they reacted to the fact that 3 qbs went in the first 10 picks and the vikes ready fire aimed at the notion of not having a qb for the season. the arkansas qb that was projected to go in the second lasted until the 74th pick. he could be a bargain.
i personally hope ponder teaches us what a difference a quality guy can make. we got a guy with personal issues who will start right away because of a hole in our line up. the details that don’t matter in pro sports are not a good example to teach our young people. or our old people for that matter.
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At first read, I thought you were referring to tuberculosis, not Trail Baboon.
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Good thing there is an Acronym section in the Glossary…
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thats why we have the “goat”
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Dale has wed two topics about which I would like to write psychological treatises–the weather and sports.
in short, naming a few issues only. In weather, 1) why we have such short memories, as if this is the first late and wet spring in southern MN history. 2) If you work in a public place greeting the public, such as a library, you will hear with absolute certainty a whole range of forecasts.
In sports 1) why and how it became so out of scale in importance. 2) What is the difference in people who see it as just fun (like the fans who were having a ball at the snowy Twins game the other night which they were losing so badly) and those who fixate on it, whether on the teams they watch locally up through the top level, or on their own past sports careers.
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It sounds, Clyde, like you genuinely don’t understand why people put such unreasonable emphasis on local team sports. That suggests you are uncommonly mature with respect to knowing yourself. I am convinced that a great many people need to affiliate with external groups in order to establish an identity and feel good about themselves. The most painful example might be the British soccer fans, for whom being a “United” fan is more important than being a Catholic or warehouse worker or citizen of any particular city. You seem to have less need than many folks for being on a winning team.
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I think you have this exactly right, Steve. We all need, in some way, to identify with a tribe – whether that tribe is associated with a religion, sports team, or geographic location. We may belong to several, and they likely overlap (e.g., liberal Democrat, MPR member, buyer-of-organic-foods). Those identities are (or were) adaptive, and used to keep us alive when tribes were smaller and kept us fed and protected.
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I am on grandpa duty all weekend, first time for them to stay at this place, for which they are all excited. So I need to clear out my office/carving room/art studio and turn it into their TV room and bedroom.
Just want to say that Dale had one of his finest week’s of writing. What a shame that only baboons are reading it. Such a range.
Hope you have a good weekend all, a weekend on which we, unlike so many, are safe from earthquakes, tornadoes, dictators, etc. and have lots to eat, warm homes, good friends, and reasonable health.
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agreed on Dale’s writing – always amazing.
thanks for good wishes, Clyde. 40 degrees and raining here
that will get the pasture a-growing
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the voice of reason. it is likely because of the fact that dale has us as the audience that it remains a vestige of civilized behavior. if the masses hooked up there would no doubt be taunting tea baggers hurranging dale for the views of the day that would doubtless be objectionable regardless of what they were. anything can be twisted as dale shows us daily… weather and sports. heck you cant be from minnesota without asking weater questions and the sports team of the season. remember robert smith the vikings running back who hated living a life with sports meat and retired because he couldnt stand hanging out with idiots as part of his job description. i felt sorry for hinm as to what i am guessing he discovered when he got his distance, they are everywhere they are everywhere. thank goodness we have nothing more arguement ative than clyde questioning priorties and reminding us of the things we have to be thankful for going on here on the trail. i do smile though when i see those weather reports on national news shows and realize what terror the minnesota forecast must strike into the hearts of dixie and the like. bless alabama, bless japan, bless haiti , the 24/7 news makes sure we get the story until it is no longer the item of the day. oil spill, egypt, politician with a bullet in the head,
we come here for perspective. and an escape to sanity. tornado, vikings, timberwolves, we can take it as long as we have a rise and shine, an update on our goats, a snort and a place to meet our gang,
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Our disaster today is that we are having a snow storm and it is also prom at the local high schools. You are right Dale, even that combination is nothing to complain about when you consider the destruction in the South.
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prom dress with sorrels is a sight to behold though
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Prom was postponed until today. The sun is shining, so maybe the snow will be melted by afternoon, in which case sorrels won’t be necessary. The after prom party will only go until 10:30 since tomorrow is a school day, after all. I think there will be lots of kids phoned in “sick” tomorrow. I wonder how the girls will get their hair done-I haven’t heard if the hairdressers are skipping church this morning to do the work they were going to do yesterday.
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I love that Vikings snark at the end, Dale!
To recognize World Tai Chi Day, I’m heading over to our Avera Campus in a few minutes to their seminar. It’s free and open to the public, like Obama’s birth certificate.(Donald Trump is the Devil!) I hope they serve Chai Tea.
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Chai Tea at Tai chi? say that 3 times quickly.
very cleaver, Ms. D
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Funny, Donna. It would be great to make this both Tai Chi and Chai Tea Day.
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Would you wear a bow tie to Tae Bo?
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oh Dale – even when you ask a question we seem to talk about whatever is on our minds. but your writing sets a tone for us, so if you stop asking questions or go to every other time or something please, please don’t ever stop writing!
i need to confess responsibility for some bad things: when Mom died in January i hoped out loud that the Twins and Vikings would not go on to championships – at least not this year. she was such a huge fan of both. it just wouldn’t be fair. so, i’m sorry.
who’s Ponder? what happened to the other QBs?
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the vikings took him as a number 1 draft choice after the 3 quarterbacks of quality by the estimation of the masses were taken earlier. he is an intelligent athelete with adaquate capability rather than a freak athelets with the brain of a gas station attendant who wants more money so he can by more cars and stuff. i hope he turns out to be a model for the world to ingest. a leader of men who is put there with a mind capable of handling it would be refreshing. unheard of but refreshing
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Do you have a beef with a gas station attendant, tim?
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nah , pay him 20 million and listen to him whine
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i had a oment wherei had to choose which vocation to slam and i picked gas station attendants. they really don’t exist the same way i remember or think of them. remember the guys who had to come out and fill your tank and wash your windows even though they didn’t want to? today they scan your burrito and sell you copenhagen or tell you your pump is ready over the loudspeaker. garrison did a bit once where he compared shepards in the christmas story to paring lot attendants, among the dregs and hangers on of the universe. got a few ideas to share as to other candadates for the insertion as a slug the missing links with shoulder pads on remind you of? i would love to have some baboon input on this topic.
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Corporate slime, Wall Street types, credit industry execs….
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yeah but they are of the same cloth as these millionaire entitled little boys who have a brain that says me me me. the difference is that the majority of the wall streeters can speak in complete sentances
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I have to admit a certain wonderment at how you get through a tornado without a basement or storm cellar. A safe haven to hide until things, quite literally, blow over. (Though when a tornado came charging through South Mpls back in the 80s, I was, along with my big brother, standing out on the front porch wondering why it hat gotten so windy all of a sudden – we went inside to turn on the radio right before the tree fell across the street…then the tornado sirens went off.)
I am glad for TB – a basement that serves both as rec room and shelter from the storm (Vikings players or no).
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I just sent the Strib link to all my California people – they each understand my warped sense of humor. This is kind of sobering, actually, but my way of dealing with disasters is usually to make light of it somehow. Not sure that’s always wise…
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Not to blame the victims….but I am always struck by the absence of tornado sirens and basements in the southern tornado zone. Similarly, folks keep rebuilding in hurricane flood zones. As a transplanted Minnesotan I am always impressed with the attention to seasonal preparation in this state. Should I be making preparations for the next earthquake.
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i think down south has a trailer park mentality to home building. pour a slab and whack up some two x fours then move in and insulate as you can afford it.
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Good morning to all:
It is good not to have to worry about earthquakes of huricanes. I have seen tornadoes, only small ones, and there has been some fairly heavy damage not far from where I live. Don’t forget about blizzards, we have those and they aren’t any fun. Professional football has just become too brutal, so I don’t watch it and the sad state of the Vikings does have much effect on me.
I was a big professional football fan up to a few years ago. There was a time when a hard hit on a quarter back was considered dirty play. Not now. I think there were always too many injuries in professional football. However, I really wonder what broadcasters are thinking when they see a defensive halfback violently blind side a receiver in a way that could cause great damage and then say that was a good hard hit.
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Morning–
The science department at the college has two seismographs down in the basement in my area of the theater.
I’ll have to go check out the computer there to see what it showed for our earthquake last week.
It was pretty amazing to see the marks it made during the Japan Earthquake…
Regarding the storms in the South this past week; a friend of mine was down there on business. He wrote: “Of course I was there for that giant storm. Trying to follow the GPS on my phone through some twisty neighborhood back to the hotel with the radio DJ saying this and that county take shelter immediately, the trees and streetlights swinging wildly, and me moaning “I have no idea what county I am in!”
He lived.
Raining here again today…
I just got off the phone with a survey of fast food restaurants. I have now fulfilled my question quota for the weekend.
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Oh mercy – I hope there isn’t a question quota (or limit). With an almost-seven-year-old in the house I probably reach that quota/limit before noon.
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report back on the seismographs. interesting and please tell about the japan data
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BARN SWALLOWS ARE HERE!
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hooray!!!!
the stars are aligning.
i do believe that the change in the seasons keeps us ready for stuff like tornado and blizzard and flood sandbagging much more than the sleepyheads who need to remember to acknowledge a change in the seasons. they talk slow in the south for a reason.
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And so is May. However, I’m still not convinced the seasons have changed. The winds last night indicate March is here. Now where is my kite? My early tulips bloomed while I was in Iowa overnight. That was nice to come home to.
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welcome home to 40 degrees and tulips, the spring of 2011.
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I have a Baltimore oriole this morning!
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very nice – then they’ll be here in a few days, we hope. but if they are wise, they’ll stay south a bit longer. 34 degrees and howling wind right now. but no snow (yet).
we have 6 trumpeter swans on the little lake nearby.
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do you put out oranges or how do they end up at your place?
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They’ve been showing up for the last few years. When I see them I put out grape jelly and orange nectar, but not until I see them. They’re attracted because I have so many other birds at my feeders. Today: hairy and downy woodpeckers, cardinals, bright sunny yellow goldfinches, cranberry red house finches, chickadees, three sparrows, nuthatches, mourning doves, robins and grackles. There are still loons on the lakes here, so they are still coming through.
The pair of ospreys at Waterville Fish Hatchery began incubating eggs on April 21 or 22.
We have a bumper crop of cormorants and pelicans this year. The phone at work rings off the hook with anglers who are worried that the increased population of fish-eating birds will decimate the walleyes right before the fishing opener (they won’t).
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Our storm yesterday was odd. It was snowing and blowing so hard that I often couldn’t see across the street, yet it was warm enough so that much of the snow melted when it hit the ground. At the height of the storm we saw very confused robins pulling even more confused worms out of the garden plot.
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How can you tell that a worm is confused????
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They were wearing parkas and bathing suits.
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I am seeing some of the birds that migrate through here in the spring including Pelicans and Cormornats on Albert Lea lake and Purple Finches, Yellow Throated Sparows, a Brown Thrasher, and a Towhee in Clarks Grove. That was the first Towhee that I have ever seen in Minnesota.
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probably came for the Royals’ wedding. “Drink Your Tea!!!” is the human interpretation of a Towhee’s song. cool to see.
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We sometimes see rufous sided towhees here in the fall.
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My mom and I had a similar conversation yesterday. She complained about the cold, delayed spring and her inability to get out and clean up her yard. We’re all feeling that frustration around these parts. So I told her that, while we may have had a really long, insufferable winter and an extended cold, wet spring, I’m grateful for the roof over my head, for having a basement and for the lack of violently spinning, black, debris-laden vortexes dropping on us from the skies so far this year. She agreed and her mood seemed to lighten. And then the sun started to peek out from behind the clouds.
As always, very nice writing Dale. Thanks, and please don’t ever stop.
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this weather almost exactly happened about 7, 8 years ago when the spring didnt happen. 43 degrees and rain all of april and much of may. then we went straight to summer. the grass already green the season bypassed subtle intros and went to 87 degrees through july and a drought. i sell garden products as my major job dsecription and this stuff raises hell with the numbers. thats why we call it average. last year we werent ready for spring to pop in march this year we are crying the blues in may. on the one hand watch out what you wish for , on the other if wishes were fishes wed all cast nets in the sea. its who we all are and there is no curing us nor would we want to be in a place where it was different.
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Yes – average is good!
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tim, you sell garden products? I didn’t know this. What kind of garden products do you sell?
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fertilizer is the main thing. patio stones dirt mulch and the like has been recent product line. awning and umbrellas winter products are snow blower cabs roof rakes sidewalk deicer, in addition i am used a reference to find suppliers for different product lines because i have studied this stuff for a fistfull of years. power equipment like lawn mowers chain saws etc tractors from china
patio furniture, etc. i am an evolving seller, most recent was a paper company that needed specialty items. i had them made to specifacation and am in a new business in that area now.
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I used to be able to buy corn gluten meal at the local seed/feed store here in Waterworld. The guy hasn’t had it for the last couple of years and claims he can’t get it anymore. We are in the middle of corn country! What is going on? Do you know where I can get a 50 lb bag of CGM?
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just one?
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It was snowing in South Minneapolis this morning….Clearly the wrong weather for MAy Day!
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