Big wind was a'coming

A wind shear or burst or some kind of big wind blew through downtown Salem yesterday afternoon, knocking out plate-glass windows at Charlotte's Web Antiques Mall on Main Street, and twisting and smashing half-a-dozen or so 50-year-old trees around Salem City Hall and elsewhere.

From our newspaper office on West Main Street we could see something bad coming: a really black cloud from the east near Sugar Loaf Mountain, then total whiteness as blinding rain hit. Then it was gone.

I remember the first really bad storm I was in the middle of, during those 1990s when we remembered the year by the type of weather: Blizzard of '93, Storm of '93, Ice Storm of '94, Flood of '95...before I lost rack. Anyway, it was the first week of June and I was driving south on U.S. 29 from Madison Heights in Amherst County on my way to interview families of minor league baseball players. I had noticed a dark green, almost black, layer to the west with a white strip of sky underneath. I stopped in the local drugstore to buy black-and-white film – yes, we were still using film in 35 mm cameras in those days – and in the five minutes I was inside the storm hit. Rain and wind blew those really heavy double glass doors inward. I remember store manager Ray Puckett running over and bracing himself against them to hold them closed.

By the time I got back on the road and was crossing the Carter Glass Bridge, it looked like a giant had chewed up spinach and spit it out all over the highway. Those were shredded leaves from millions of trees in Lynchburg.

The 5-minute storm had toppled at least three of the old, tall steeples on downtown churches, blown down 75-year-old trees in a west-to-east direction, and ripped off power lines. I detoured through the cemetery because roads to the baseball stadium were blocked, talked my way around fire trucks and when I got to the stadium, found the players, families and most of the staff gone, with 6 inches of hail everywhere. The outfield fence was missing sections. I learned later one of the game announcers had been trapped in the press box during the storm. It was located on the roof of the grandstand in those days, and he couldn't get to the steps to get out until after the storm blew itself out.

We lived in an all-electric house in a semi-rural area, and had no electricity for a couple of days. Without electricity, we also had no water because we were on a well. Our children took off to stay with friends, and Bill and I drove to a writers' conference at John Tyler Community College in Petersburg. Ironically, it had been postponed in March because of the Blizzard of '93.

We could track the path of the wind for at least 50 miles as we drove along Rt. 460 because of the slain trees. There was at least $35-million in damage to buildings in downtown Lynchburg. It took a couple of those churches more than two years to get their insurance claims and rebuild the steeples. But it wasn't a tornado, according to the National Weather Service. Just a wind shear.

A Tale of Two Vans

It all started with a simple plan: borrow a van to get my pet portrait paintings and 6-foot display screens to and from Olde Salem Days on Saturday.

I should preface this with the explanation that two weeks ago my trusty 2000 Durango blew a gasket. “Blowing a gasket” was one of my Daddy’s favorite expressions. When I was growing up I didn’t know what it really meant, except that somebody was mad. In this case, the gasket is deep in deep in the Durango’s bowels, the timing cover gasket.

After taking powderpuff auto mechanics when I had a slant-6 1965 Dodge Dart, I know a fair amount about what’s where inside engines, but a timing cover gasket that causes the car to leak like a sieve and blow clouds of steam is a new one on me. I figured it was the water pump, or a stuck thermostat or something related, once I could tell it wasn’t the radiator or the hoses.

At any rate, the Durango is sidelined until I can get it fixed.

One of the main reasons I picked out a Durango was for the 6-foot-carrying space for fall craft shows, and here I was days away from my first one of the season.

I arranged to borrow a van that was beat-up but ran. My sweet husband spent a couple of hours on Friday packing the wire screens, wooden screens, boxes of my Animal Art by Meg paintings and framed ones into the van while I was at work. I was feeling so positive about the whole thing, being packed hours before Saturday morning. Hah!

At 5:30 Friday evening, I went out to start the van to drive to Salem that evening to take a photograph. Nothing. It was deader than a doornail (where did that expression come from, anyway?)

Bill had already left to teach a master’s level class in marketing at National College, and wouldn’t be home until about 10 p.m.

I started calling neighbors, and got no answer at the first three. The fourth didn’t have jumper cables. We did. Ted Lineberry generously came over to jump the old van. It wouldn’t even turn over.

He decided it was something other than the battery. I wasn’t so sure, but bummed a ride with him back to Salem and borrowed a second van.

So far, so good, even though it meant the prospect of unloading and reloading everything in the dark of night. Bill was willing, but not the happiest of campers, especially when we couldn’t get the rear door of the second van open. It opened for me two hours earlier, I promise.

So he jumped the older van with the newer one, and left it running for awhile. It started, and all was well with the world.

Until the next morning. At 6:45 a.m. when I climbed in and shut the driver’s door, it bounced back. The locking mechanism was frozen. Olde Salem Days starts whether or not you’re there to set up. Bill handed over a bungee cord, and I strapped the door closed by hooking it to the seat belt connector. I wouldn’t have tried this except that the trip was a little over 2 miles each way, and on back streets.

The old van performed just fine, except for the door. I left a note on the keys and was glad to return it to its home.

Editor’s note: My Durango is fixed, back and I am soooooooo happy to have wheels that work again. I can’t say enough good things about Rick Yopp and his Riverside Auto in Salem. Less than 24 hours after the Durango was towed to his shop, he had her fixed. – Meg

To everything there is a season

First there are the purple and white violets and bluets and unnamed tiny yellow flowers defying winter in our woods. Then life progresses way too fast through pink wild geranium, white fleabane, magenta redbuds, white dogwood if it's a good season, and suddenly, Queen Anne's lace and the lavender blue of chicory that signals full-blown summer and the heat that comes with it. Finally there is the pollen yellow of goldenrod which lasts through the dogwood leaves turning red and the first frosts.

For every kind of wildflower there is a season. For us, too. I hear friends talk about "being too old to do what I used to do." I refuse to use the word old until I'm 80. At least that's what I say now. I subscribe to the Old Testament Hebrew tradition of "If you say it, it can become real."

I know I'm not 20 any more – nor would I want to be – nor 30 or 40... Actually, I'm only 9. I keep trying to convince people of that. I don't tell little children any more because they look at me funny. But my family knows and understands. I grew up as an old child and began working my way backwards as an adult.

I've known people who were old at age 30, and others who were young at age 90. Attitude has a whole bunch to do with that. Genes, too. Of course, our bodies betray us as various parts wear out, but still, if you think young you feel a whole lot younger, I'm convinced.

I remember my daddy saying shortly before he died of lung cancer at age 75 that he was thinking about what he wanted to be when he grew up. That's an accepted idea now, when people have on the average three careers during their lifetime. My dad, John Bachner Gross, died in 1986 and not many people were thinking that way then. Sitting back in retirement was expected when you got to be 60 or 65.

Not me, and not my husband, Bill, either. Although he is a retired community planner, he is still working, teaching world geography at the Salem campus of National College, as a Census enumerator right now and during the season, as an income tax preparer for Liberty Tax. He also keeps score for Salem Parks and Recreation ball games, and ushers at Salem Civic Center concerts and other events.

As I get closer to 65, I'm beginning to think that someday I would like to slow down a little from the twice-weekly crunch pace of community newspapers. I still plan to write until I'm in the grave, or, in reality, my body is transformed into ashes and scattered in some interesting places around the world – like petals from spent flowers.

To everything there is a season.