WATER, WIND AND SPIN – My Go-round With the June, 1981 Minneapolis Tornado

For some reason I’ve been thinking about fluid dynamics. Maybe it’s that, after yet another long northern winter, our 11,842 lakes here in Minnesota are finally turning back to fluid. Or the prospect of soon getting out on the St. Croix River in my little canoe—that is if we’re spared the river’s usual spring flooding.

Another reason might be that it will soon be prime tornado season here. (From May through July Minnesota averages 41 twisters each year.) Wait…fluid dynamics and tornadoes?

I could, and probably should, write a post just about all the ways air acts like water. Suffice it to say for now that how water drains from a sink or bathtub, how it swirls—counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere—is exactly the way air acts during nearly all tornadoes. And yes, just like water, most tornadoes spin clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.

A DRAINING EXPERIENCE
It’s June 14, 1981—a Sunday—a bit before 4 PM. I’m upstairs in my little house on 16th Avenue South, Minneapolis, chipping away 60 years of paint that's lost its grip on a window sill. Though it’s far from taxing work, I’m sweating.

The air outside, and even more so inside—on the second floor of a non-air-conditioned house—is thick with humidity. I’m grateful for the occasional waft of breeze that finds me.

The work is pleasant. I’m accomplishing something, listening to some nice Hall & Oates on the stereo, and Bess, my sweet black lab, is lying on the rug beside me, panting.

At one point, I notice it’s getting kind of dark outside, and now those breezes are holding their breath. You can almost smell the rain coming. Oh well, I figure, I’ll work until I feel it on my hands.

 A few minutes later the gunmetal sky and everything I can see out the window has taken on an eerie greenish cast. I realize this can’t be good.

I don’t remember hearing the civil defense sirens going off. Just that soon it’s raining, then hailing. Then the air starts churning…and that’s when I hear it.

          I picture the massive, vacuum-cleaning
          vortex swirling overhead.

SO MUCH DUST

Nearly everyone who’s lived through a tor-
nado says they heard an unearthly rumbling heading toward them. Like a freight train. That’s exactly what I hear. Bess hears it too and gets really squirrelly.
 
I’d been fascinated with tornadoes ever since I was a boy and always wished I could see one. I admired those daredevils who tear along back roads in Kansas, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle to document them. And here’s my moment; I’m about to be in the middle of one. But I can tell you, what I’m experiencing is not a thrill.

IMAGE: The Weather Channel

I imagine the massive, vacuum-cleaning vortex swirling overhead. And here’s this flimsy little house, these two minute creatures helpless in its path. If it’s an F4 or F5, we’re like so much dust.

I take the cues and start down to the basement. First I shut the window, and I feel my ears pop as if something just sucked all the air out of the house. In the kitchen I grab some candles and my portable radio and by the time we reach the cellar it’s like we’re under a trestle and the train is thundering right over us.

     The entire roof of the three-story apartment
     building next door gets lifted off and dropped
     across my back yard and garage.

FOREST FOR THE TREES
We’re not in the basement for more than a few minutes when the ominous roar ebbs. And we still have a roof over our heads! I head cautiously up the stairs and, thank God, everything appears intact.

It’s when I go outside that I see the destruction. Eighty-foot, half-century-old trees ripped from the ground. Cars piled on one another. Large sheets of drywall and other building materials strewn in the street. (I later find out they’re from the Sears yard a mile away.) And the entire roof of the three-story apartment building next door lifted off and dropped across my back yard and garage.

IMAGE: teapots happen

• The so-called Har Mar tornado, rated an F-3 with winds reaching nearly 200 miles per hour, was on the ground for 26 minutes.

• The human toll: two fatalities, 6 serious injuries, more than 80 minor injuries. (Experts considered it miraculous that these numbers weren't much higher.)
• Other impact: $47 million in property damage; 1,300 homes, 50 businesses and 400-plus vehicles damaged or destroyed; 3,500 trees killed; some 30,000 customers without power.*

So I’ve finally experienced my tornado, up close and personal. I suppose that affords me certain bragging rights. But, ironically—and disappointingly—I’ve yet to see one. Maybe this tornado season I’ll get that chance (from a safe distance this time).
                                               ~       •      ~       •      ~      

TIP #30 ON HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT:
Blow toward a candle from across the room.
Air's like this magical, invisible liquid. It ebbs and flows, pours in to fill voids, lifts huge things...like roofs and wings.
Like a wave, your blown breath rolls across the room. Will there be enough left of it to make lap candle’s tongue of flame?
FROM UNDER THE WILD GINGER – BY JEFFREY WILLIUS

* Storm data thanks to CBS News, WCCO and Minnesota Public Radio, and
   Hennepin County Emergency Management.

IT'S A SNAP

IMAGE: JoyGenea.com

Here’s a thought: How do you explain to someone what left and right are (assuming they have no help from signage)? Do you remember how you learned?

I do. Until I was three or four, I don’t think I had a clue. But once my mother figured out that I was right-handed, she taught me how to snap my fingers. I learned quickly to do it with my right hand; never really gave much thought to trying it with my left.

After that, any time I was in doubt about which way was right, all I had to do was snap my fingers.

OFF TO MEXICO – Yum-m-m!

I'm like a hungry man about to sit down to a hearty four-course meal. That's how I'm feeling on the eve of my 32nd trip to Mexico. 

(They've all been wonderful, but his time will be even more so. First, because last year's visit got stymied by a last-minute health scare. Second, because this time my whole family is coming down to help Sally and me celebrate my big, round-number birthday. (Rhymes with weighty.))

As beautiful as Minnesota winters can be, they starve us of sensation. Against this backdrop of bland whites and grays and taupes, we're challenged to find the sustenance of color in detail and nuance—like a rosy cheek or a tenacious freeze-dried crab apple. Smells are served unseasoned, frozen in midair. Sound, too, seems squeezed out of its luscious fullness like dried fruit. Even touch is blunted by layers of nylon (most of it black, it seems), feathers and fleece.

   A Minnesotan would be dragged before
   the neighborhood association for painting his 
   house these vivid shades of pink, blue or gold.

In most of Mexico, including Zihuatanejo, Guerrero where I'm headed, climate and culture collaborate to nourish one with colors, sounds, smells and flavors.



The colors: a Minnesotan would be dragged before the neighborhood association for painting his house these vivid shades of pink, blue or gold. The smells: so often they reveal, where sights may not, the real life that's going on beyond the sphere of one's sanitized tourist experience. The tastes: there's nothing dried or preserved about them; they're fresh and true and sometimes surprising. And the touch, oh, the caress of that soft, warm, delicious air pouring in off the Pacific!

Even the sounds of this place transport me: the haunting, three-note pan-flute plea of the itinerant knife sharpener; the blare of música norteña from passing cars and work sites; the other-worldly rasping of a covey of chachalacas. And behind it all, the soft, sure respiration of the surf.



Maybe it's the warmth that unlocks both stimuli and senses. Belying the laid back, unhurried lifestyle, the sensations of Mexico stir in me a subtle sense of urgency. A mango, for example, just picked from the tree outside our villa door, is such a beautiful form just to look at. But no sooner than it begins to blush with full color you have to eat it or it loses its tang and turns to mush. So many beautiful things are transient.

And Zihuatanejo's a place of seamless flow between indoor and outdoor life. With little notion of that confinement we Minnesotans suffer during winter, you sense everything going on —in El Centro, down at Playa La Ropa out on Zihuatanejo Bay—and want to be a part of it all. But it's okay; anything you do—even nothing at all—feels completely satisfying, thoroughly nourishing of body and spirit.

HUNKERED DOWN – When Wonder Moves Indoors

It's the depth of winter here in Minnesota. Not to worry; we're hearty souls. Generally, we don't let that stop us from enjoying life, even life outdoors—which, by the way, is still full of great beauty and life.

        A person's need for discovery and wonder 
        doesn't get left at the door like the parka 
        and boots.

Nonetheless, below zero wind chills conspire with the sun's quitting at 4:30 to make us spend far more time cooped up inside than we do in the summer. Some- times we have no choice but to hunker down for a couple of days and wait out a blizzard and the arctic deep freeze that so often follows.

But a person's need for discovery and wonder doesn't get left at the door like the parka and boots. Even indoors we're curious; our child side still needs to play, learn and experience delight.

Of course, there's always TV, a good book or the Internet to help pass the long, dark hours. But these, I submit, are remote, second-hand experiences. They may entertain or inform us, but do they nourish a curious soul?

Even indoors I'm always surprised and delighted at how many real-life, present-moment natural wonders await discovery when I'm willing to look with care. Here are just a few examples:

       Study the strokes and patterns; marvel 
       at the feathered crystalline brushwork; 
       imagine how the artist determined where 
       each element in the composition would go.

Could there be a more elegant artistic expression than the crystalline masterpieces Nature renders with water? Outdoors, of course, it’s snow; whether seen as flake or drift, it's the most sublime of sculptures. Indoors, though, relegated to the two-dimensional “canvas” of frozen glass, she once again outdoes herself.

Look closely at frost; study the strokes and patterns; marvel at the feathered crystalline brushwork; imagine how the artist determined where each element in the composition would go. Touch it; see how ephemeral it is. See if you can melt it without quite touching it.

Perhaps the one thing that changes most when our world moves indoors is our appreciation of things that live and grow. Instead of marveling at trees, shrubs or flowers in their natural, wild setting, we devise ways to shrink, capture and confine them in pots that clamber close to windows. Try not to take them for granted. These plants, for their staunch, surrogate duty, are all the more worthy of our notice.

For our indoor animal fix, we turn from summer's chancy thrill of spotting critters in their own realms and on their own terms to the certainty of specimens we've shaped to our convenience, bred to need no more than our care and attention. Take advantage of these most opportune occasions to relish your closeness to these dear creatures.

    The subtle white, comet-tail streaks suggest the 
    seeds have streaked out from center. And there 
    they’ve landed, on the vivid, glossy surface of 
    the fruit, each cupped in its own tiny crater. 

Instead of discovering a strange new fruit or nut on a wild plant somewhere in the woods, we learn in winter to explore things closer at hand, perhaps things so common we never thought to look at them with wonder. For example, have you stopped to appreciate the elegance of line, color, form and texture in a freshly sliced strawberry?

See how the flesh morphs from furry, white, womb-like core into sweet, solid crimson. Note the subtle white, comet-tail streaks that suggest the seeds have streaked out from center. And there they’ve landed, on the vivid, glossy surface of the fruit, each cupped in its own tiny crater.

Would you agree that discovery and wonder need not be lost on the home-bound? See if you can find "wild" living critters like meal worms, spiders or perhaps the occasional holdover ladybug. See what you can discover about another person. Play with soap bubbles or static electricity. Explore the attic. Cook something. Try to...ah-h-h...wait a second...whoa-a-a!...I'm sorry, I have a fire going in the fireplace, and there's this...amazing bright blue...tongue of flame…