Library Notes
May 10, 2003
By Pansy Hundley, Librarian.
Driving down an Oklahoma City freeway last Thursday at 5:00 PM, my daughter, Suzanne, called me on her cell phone. She excitedly told me "There’s a tornado on the ground in Oklahoma City. Calm me down!" and she was crying by the time she got all that out.
Now, who was going to calm me down, I ask you? I didn’t know if that twister was in sight, where she was, or if it was ten feet behind her.
I immediately asked "Do you have Cheyenne with you?" She had left him at a Mother’s Day Out earlier in the day. She answered that she did have him. I assured her that that was the most important thing then.
She was driving home from a town a few miles from Oklahoma City, where Mark was working. She had gotten into the Suburban, turned the radio on and every station was interrupting broadcasts to talk about the tornado.
Then the National Weather Service horn started sounding. Ambulances and police cars were appearing from everywhere.
Of course, at first Suzie didn’t know where the thing was. The radio was telling all about it, but didn’t tell the location and the direction it was travelling. Finally they did say that it was over Tinker Air Force Base, which is about ten miles or so from their house.
It was travelling down I-240 and where I-240 intersected Sooner Road was the worse hit area. That was the way Suzanne was headed home. She turns at that corner. Had she not had to double back and pick up forgotten parts for Mark earlier, she would have likely been smack-dab in the middle of it all.
May 3rd was the third anniversary of the Moore tornado three years ago. This one had come across I-35 in Moore at about the same place the one three years ago had. Some of the rebuilt houses were right in the path again.
So, that meant that Suzie’s two ways home, I-240 and I-35, were shut down. Her two ways---and the two ways for about half the city getting off work at 5:00. You can visualize the chaos. Emergency vehicles going everywhere, and everyone trying to figure out how to get home, because you couldn’t "get there from here".
Suz finally pulled up to traffic-directing cop and asked him how far down she had to go before I-35 opened up. He told her and she and all the other cars out there headed for the cross-over place. She knew it was all the cars out there, because it took her five hours to get home. From 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM she snaked along, taking five hours to go the distance that normally would have taken an hour or less.
She and Cheyenne had eaten late with Dad, at 4:00 PM, thank goodness. With pretzels and cheesy crackers, they managed to sustain themselves, cause they sure missed supper.
Cheyenne’ bedtime, about 8:00 PM, came and went. He always pick up his mother’s moods, so he was upset and worried. Suz drove along at her 2 miles per hour and held Chey’s hand, as he sat in his car seat behind her.
I talked to her a couple of times on her cell phone, but her battery was getting low. Probably because we had stayed on it so long earlier when that twister was on the ground, deciding where it would go. I had been afraid to get off, for fear that crazy thing might change directions and come after her.
It headed it’s self on up toward Tulsa and lost much of its’ power by then. No wonder. It stayed on the ground about an hour or more in Oklahoma City and beyond.
What’s with these twisters that stay down so long? I don’t understand it. In the past, they would only, usually, touch down for a short time and then maybe bounce on somewhere else. But these monsters come down and forget to go back up.
Now that we’ve escaped that one, and we hope, no more come, let’s change the subject to something more pleasant. A new book, written by Jude Deveraux, should do the trick, don’t you think? And you ladies out there will all answer "Yes Ma’am!" The title is "Wild Orchids" and it is "a story of love, tragedy, and mystery in a small North Carolina town brimming with secrets." Well, alright! Let’s get to it.
"Have you ever lost someone who meant more to you that your own soul? Ford Newcombe has. For years, he loved his wife, Pat, more than anyone – and anything – in the world. She came into his life when he was just an inexperienced college student with big dreams of becoming a published author. With love and humor, she guided him down the path that would eventually lead him to more success than he ever dreamed possible. Since Pat’s death six years ago, Ford has lived a life of solitude, barely able to put pen to paper, and rumors are flying that it was Pat who actually created the books the world so loved.
If there’s one thing that Ford needs it’s inspiration, and it finally comes in the guise of Jackie Maxwell – a smart, sassy university researcher with just enough attitude to match Ford’s sharp intellect. But it’s her intimate knowledge of the story of a young woman’s friendship with the devil – and what the townspeople did to her – that persuades Ford to hire Jackie as his assistant and to move to Cole Creek, North Carolina, where the story is said to have taken place. They soon learn that even though the inhabitants of Cole Creek try to deny it, they are still plagued by the consequences of the other worldly tale of passion and death..
As Ford and Jackie work to unravel the truth, they discover a connection between their lives and the past, a connection that not only helps them solve a long-ago crime, but offers the promise of new love."