LETTERS FROM HOME: THE DAY THE WIND BLEW AND YOU COULDN'T GET A CHERRY COKE

May 20, 1999

Dear Patty,

You'd think being marooned in a Dairy Queen would be heavenly. It wasn't.

Not when a power outage has incapacitated the ice cream and soda machines and through the big plate glass windows you can see trees doing deep knee bends.

Monday morning, the TV weatherman said we probably were in for some storms but most of the day was just gray. It wound up kind of black and blue.

I was working in Scott City, a small town just south of Cape Girardeau. Warning sirens began sounding as I was preparing to leave. Threatening black cloud loomed over the rooftops, but no wind had come up yet.

That occurred as I was driving down Main Street. Gusts of wind began whipping bushes and blowing litter into the sky. A car passed me doing about 80. Another driver blasted his horn when I obeyed a stop sign.

It began to resemble a scene in a disaster movie when the survival instinct kicks in and people start making up their own rules.

Country music was playing on most of the radio stations, but one was broadcasting a severe thunderstorm warning. Usually, people around here don't get excited unless someone has seen a tornado, but something about how hard the wind was blowing -- 90 mph in some places -- said this was dangerous anyway.

Still, I drove by a convenience store and a supermarket without stopping. Then it appeared, that beckoning Dairy Queen sign. I knew I could fine refuge and a cherry Coke. Call it a comfort food.

The doors were locked against the wind but the manager let me in. It was dark inside because the power already had been knocked out.

Ten of us were stranded by the storm: One woman who was 20 miles from home, two elderly ladies wearing matching T-shirts, a construction crew and the DQ staff.

We had no flashlight or radio but it was kind of nice to have each other. I thought of DC, who loves storms as long as no one gets hurt. I think it's because those moments when you don't know what's going to happen next are when you're most alive.

The manager served us cups of water. She apologized that it wasn't something tastier, but all the goody machines operate on electricity.

We traded information about what we knew about the storm -- next to nothing -- and made small talk, hoping in our ignorance that the wind would die down instead of increase.

And it did within half an hour. One by one we left our haven and returned to the world.

Back in Cape Girardeau, the scene looked like a super hero had thrown a temper tantrum. None of the street lights worked, trees were uprooted, large branches were scattered about the city, roofs were torn up.

At work, crisis mode had set in. We were preparing to put the newspaper out at a sister publication 30 miles away when the lights and computers went back on.

DC had been by to check on my whereabouts. I'd gone by her vacant office and left her a note at home that I was OK. It was a day for checking in.

My 93-year-old grandmother happened to be entertaining a funeral director at her home that afternoon. Even though her health is fine, she has decided to pre-arrange her funeral.

When the storm came up, my grandmother and my mother sought safety in the basement. The funeral director stayed topside.

I guess he's already made his pre-arrangements.

Love, Sam