Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
The green in Green Country is here again. The grass is getting greener, along with the weeds, and I can no longer go more than a week without mowing. Well, I can and sometimes do, but it looks sloppy when I don’t get it done. Armando has come by, cleared the weeds from the flower beds, and replaced them with new flowering plants.
He also built a new flower bed and leveled out the front lawn, which was a washboard to mow. Now all the grass out front is gone, and the rain is washing the dirt back to the gutter. I’m going to replace the grass with clover this year and see how it works. I hope the weather cooperates and allows my new groundcover to germinate. It might be a while before it starts looking good again.
The rain is welcome, but it would be nice if it just slowed down a bit. Last night’s rain was too much, and the winds were a bit much, too. The thunder and lightning got a bit carried away, also. And when the tornado siren went off across the street, well, we just weren’t expecting it. Usually, we are glued to the meteorologists whenever they take over whatever is on TV. But this time it snuck up on us. I keep our ‘fraidy-hole ready to go, so we only needed to climb in. It hasn’t been that long since we were in it last, so there were no spiders to contend with.
It wasn’t long ago that Sapulpa got bypassed by the rotation to the north and to the south within the same hour. This time, we had a whirly touchdown about ten minutes away. It was late at night, and we went to sleep not knowing how bad it was. I woke up in the morning and gave the property a good walk around. I was surprised to see such a beautiful morning with chirping birds and no damage. I didn’t even see branches down. Tonight might be another storm like last night, I hope not. My old California friends are going to start thinking that maybe I’m not being honest or sincere when I say the tornado situation in Oklahoma isn’t all that bad. I still like it here much better than California. We’ve got our ‘fraidy-hole, we got this…
I’m a little bit embarrassed about the state of my yard, though. It needs to be cut desperately, but it’s too wet after last night’s storm. I likely won’t get it mowed tomorrow either if more rain is expected tonight. I keep telling Armando I can handle cutting my own grass, even at my advanced age, but that is not what he is seeing. Oh well, being an old man is a good excuse; besides, mine is not the only grass that needs some attention. I need to chill and put all this in perspective.
Having tall grass is nothing compared to listening to that freight train sound, silence, and then the freight train again from inside the ‘fraidy-hole. I don’t want to open up that door and see that my Studebakers are both gone. That would throw a huge inconvenience into the Route 66 Centennial drive from Chicago to LA that I have been working on for about the last ten months.
I need to remind myself that I am not the one in charge around here. This could be another scary night, or it could be a beautiful thing, like what I saw this morning when I walked around the property to check for damage. The very damage I did not see anywhere. Jesus has the wheel, and if He wants to drive my Studebakers to who knows where, I have to be OK with that. As cool as I think those cars are, they are just STUFF. Tonight’s weather is not up to me. If we need to get into our ‘fraidy-hole, we will. When I awaken tomorrow morning, as long as I see my wife lying next to me, and our little goofy-looking dog on the bed, that’s all I need. In the words of Dude 44 Bravo, “God is Good…”