I can really dig Hurricanes. They are nature profoundly kicking our asses, killing people, sending small frogs sailing inches deep into fence posts and generally being the most punk rock mosh pit ever, but then after blowing the bejeezus out of everything it all comes to an end, you get grandma’s shoes and head down off the carport, and wring out your new cat that you’ve never seen before and realize there’s gonna be construction work for decades.

I recall being involved in a hurricane years ago in my hometown of Beerstain, Texas, during the storm somehow a shrouded wooded area called “Weedville” got pelted with hundreds of railroad “ties” (That’s the wooden part of a railroad track for all you folks who have never been in a hurricane). A week after the storm, I went out there and discovered the surreal sight (normally there are lots of little frogs but I found none).
A week after that the back porch of my parents house had a great looking deck made out of the heavy ass railroad ties, the storm taketh away and then it giveth unto me, the fella whose grandma was already dead and who don’t like cats, I had nothing to lose and railroad equipment to gain. SCORE!
People always end up losing their roofs during hurricanes, when our town was hit my house was one that didn’t need to worry about it. Y’see, friends, as a pre-pubescent kid I had already crawled up on our roof and, after running out of B.B.s, decided to rip off shingles by the handful and Frisbee them into the neighbors yards. Ha ha! Two points for me. Hurricane ZERO.
Another thing that I found interesting; an old man down the street was so impressed by the storm he decided to build this gigantic windmill in the hopes of generating power the electric company would have to buy back from him in the event of another wind storm. It stood still as a dead granny for years as I grew up, and no Hurricane ever came again (so far). He either died of old age waiting or Enron “offed” the poor bastard, well can’t blame him for throwing the dice.
Now I don’t buy a word that comes to me via the mainstream news but I think I can be reasonably sure that four hurricanes recently plowed into the most wretched part of the U.S.A…. Floridumb: no bike lanes, rednecks that keep human livestock and blind grannies waving Cadillacs around at top speed. I hear people say “God is punishing them for political cronyism compromising the big election…and stuff.”
Bull shit! How arrogant to think in those terms, I think God was blessing the alligators who got a buffet a la granny heads and stupid newsmen who decided they needed to get blown into a bayou just to prove the weather was bad.
I now live in the northwest where there’s an active culture of bike riders (not spandex wearing action yuppies), few frogs, few grannies and a volcano called Mount Hood that I can see out my window, c’mon St. Helens I know ya got it in ya, keep trying.