Hail

One of the storms that passed a few weeks ago brought some hail with it. I got a call from my wife on her cell phone telling me that the power was out at home. She wanted me to call the power company to report it. So, the waiting on hold game began, you know what I mean, we have all been there. I had been sitting there, listening to the propaganda about services they provide, for several minutes when she called back to tell me that electrical connection had been reestablished. She then put our thirteen year old on the phone so he could tell me the horrifying story of having to run down six hundred feet of driveway while being pelted with golf ball size hail. His biggest complaint was the pain. I was trying to get out of the office, as it was now time to go, so I just told him that he would be fine. Leaving him feeling slighted, as if I didn’t really care about what he had been through. Little did I know what the kid had really dealt with. I mean come on, a little hail? During the drive home I saw little storm damage, until I got closer in. A few miles from home I was going to stop at the gas station I use, one of the few that doesn’t force pre-pay, but the power was out there. It was then that I began to notice large amounts of debris covering the road. Leaves, Limbs, pinestraw, various bits and pieces of nature were all over the place. When I turned onto the road that we live on it looked like a dirt road running through someone’s back property. It is a mile long dead end road so it doesn’t get the amount of traffic the other roads do. At this point I began to notice that trees were down here and there. There was a tree in a neighbor’s yard that was split, half still standing and half lying very close to their porch. I began to get nervous. When I started down our driveway I saw that the eeriest looking fog I had ever seen had crept in. When I got out of the car I noticed how cool it was. It felt ten degrees cooler here than when I had left the office. I saw that some trees had been knocked down by wind, but luckily none were close to the house. On the walk to the porch I began to notice that there was hail piled everywhere. Ranging in size from penny to baseball size, it was laying up in drift formations against everything. Thus the ‘fog’. I saw several things on the porch had been dented pretty badly. The porch light had been smashed, only bits of the bulb hanging loosely from the socket. When I walked through the door the floor in front of the door was soaked. I saw my thirteen year old sitting on the couch holding a wash cloth full of ice to the back of his head. I asked him if he was going to be ok and he said sure. My four year old began to excitedly tell me about having to hide under a desk at the sitter’s house and my wife was cooking something at the stove. What I wanted to do was run to my son and check his head for wounds, tell him that I was sorry for brushing him off earlier, then gather everyone together for a group hug and moment of silent thankfulness that we were all ok. But that wouldn’t fit the tough redneck who cares attitude I have to display right? So instead I just asked what was for dinner…