So here's the story:� Picture it, the idyllic early 80's summer, May 1983.� I was fourteen.� I grew up in a VERY whitebread neighborhood, very homogenized, upper middle class, big houses (hell, I thought EVERYONE lived in a two story house for most of my early life).� Our house was pretty big.� 3300 square feet, two story, three car garage, corner lot...� yeah, we had it pretty good.�� My mom's sister, finance and their two best friends are visiting� from Burlington, Vermont.� We had 9 people in our house at� the time.� My aunt and uncle came down here to get married.� Wedding happens, its fun, blah blah blah.� During their stay the sleeping arrangements were as thus:� Mom and Dad and my brother in my parents room (front north corner of house facing front yard), aunt and uncle in my brother's room next to my parent's room (north rear corner of house facing back yard), my sister and I in her room (bedroom faces main drive in subdivision on west on side of house, and the friends were in my bedroom next to my sister's room facing the same main drive.� We are on the opposite side of the house from my parents.� There are large bay or panoramic windows in both my room and my sister's room.� Both of our rooms face the side of the house with the driveway and there are two very tall pine trees right outside my sister's window.� So, this night, bad bad thunderstorms in the area which is typical of May (all the bad weather in the Midwest going on right now in May).� We all went to bed and it was storming pretty bad outside.� No big deal.� We all went to bed to the tone of the thunderstorm.� Of course lightning and thunder make it difficult for me to sleep.

Approximately 1:00 in the morning, the rain died down and the weather calmed.� What happens next is a blur, but here's what I remember.� My sister and I were awake and probably talking when all of a sudden, it was like a bucket from God was turned upside down because the volume of rain and the ferocity of which it started to pour was enormous, TORRENTIAL and very VERY loud.� I looked out the window, and according to my sister screamed, "Oh my God!� The tree!"� We both jumped out of our beds, I tripped, she literally hurdled over me getting out of the bedroom and we ran down the hall to my parent's room.� They came running out yelling, "Get downstairs!!!"� We all ran downstairs into the bathroom right underneath the stairs where, if you have no basement, is THE safest place to be in a tornado.� I don't remember any kind of freight train sound, only a really loud whistle of wind, the house creaking and then a really huge crash.� Then just as suddenly as it came, it was gone.� My poor sister, who was 11 at the time was shaking uncontrollably.� I felt so awful for her.� There were 7 of us crammed into this tiny bathroom.� Notice I said 7.� Where were the other two?

What had happened was the tornado had snapped off the top third portion of the two trees that were outside of my sister's window.� One tree ended up in the neighbor's yard across the street and the other had come over the game room of our house and impaled itself through the skylight in the roof, stopping only inches from our pool table.� In the dark with the lightning (and of course we lost electricity) it was very Poltergeist-esque.� We all spent the rest of the night downstairs of course, and in the morning my parent's friends came over and helped break up the chunk of tree that had come through the skylight.� That effects of that damage would plague us til my parents sold the house in 1998.� Every time it rained really hard, the skylight leaked.� So where were the other two people?� Well, apparently people from Vermont are very heavy sleepers because my aunt and uncle's friends, who were sleeping in my room, right beneath a 4' x 5' window that could have blown out and shredded them, slept through the whole thing.� How? I have no idea. But this certainly made their one and only trip to Texas memorable.

This incident terrified me enough, but when my sister moved to Tulsa to go to college, that made me REALLY nervous.� In 1992 some HORRIBLE tornados, worse than the ones they just had there, ripped through Tulsa.� I was spending the weekend with my girlfriend Sheila in Austin and at right around midnight heard about the storms.� I called my sister right then and there to make sure she was alive.� She was fine, but scared.� She told me of some of the damage that had happened and about a guy who never made it from his car to the culvert to take cover.� They found his mangled body some hours later.

A year or so after that, I was in Houston when some tornados ripped through.� I was still living at home after college graduation and my folks were out of town.� I got in that bathroom with my two dogs and got on the phone with Sheila in� Austin and stayed on the phone for almost two hours, in the bathroom, terrified and crying.� She has been through the same storm system earlier in the day and had been terrified.� Luckily, there were no tornados in my area.

Extremely high winds scare me as well.� When your house is creaking from every pore, THAT is scary.

Later that summer, Hurricane Alicia blew through.� Honestly, not even one tenth as scary.� The worst thing about it was we had no electricity for about 4 days, in August.� THAT is some of the most GAWD awful torture you can go through.� No AC in Houston in August.

I hope none of you have to experience any of that.

On a lighter note, Mary Boleyn has a new survey.� Its about Ren Speak.� Can you translate back into modern English the song titles, famous sayings and quotes in the survey?� Here's the Renspeak Survey.� Good luck!