garden show

[gurdonark]

I made a fairly early start to work and got in the mini-van I'm borrowing from my brother and his wife while my car is getting long-overdue body work done. I punched the radio over to AM, and as if by a miracle, my favorite garden program was on. I love AM radio garden programs, because on the radio ordinary people from suburbs and towns with names like Mesquite or Scurry phone in to discuss yaupon holly bushes and osage orange trees. In quiet, friendly tones the host and the callers discuss the problems of our difficult clay soil, weather extremes, and the fact that some things grow here quite well, while a much longer list of things won't grow well here at all. The whole enterprise is so down to earth, and the garden hosts are so practical, that I always feel as though I'm connecting to some facet of my life in which I no longer live, but should. Today, though, the radio host quickly advised me that we were going to switch to CNN for a while. I braced for the worst. Sure enough, the news informed me that the space shuttle Columbia was lost on its re-entry into earth's atmosphere over the skies of north Texas. When the covergae reverted to local coverage, the news featured north Texans all the way from my area down to eighty miles south of here, from towns with names like Corsicana and Palestine, describing what they had seen and heard. The ordinary people talk about gardens morning tone turned into an "ordinary people talk about disaster". I was struck by one man, from Palestine, which is apparently quite close to a critical place. He had heard the sound and seen some of the trail and debris. They asked him what it was like. He said it was "like the sound of a tornado, if you know what that sound is like".
I know the sight and sound of a tornado, and I understood that for him, the only way to describe one tragedy was by describing another tragedy.

Comments

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

I heard the eyewitness describe the sound like a tornado and the "spirals" in the sky. I've never heard a tornado, and I hope I never do. But I can imagine the sound, of impending destruction. Isn't it sometimes described as sounding like a train?

I also heard a woman who has a horse ranch. She described one of her horses bucking at the sound. For me, that was a very potent image. I don't know why. The animals know when tornadoes are coming, don't they? There was recently a fire at a horse ranch here in Virginia. The owner described the terror he saw in the horses. Scared horses make me think of the Apocalypse. She also described the smell of burning rubber.

I have gone far afield, but this event is affecting me deeply.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

A tornado sounds like a freight train with the doors loose in the freight cars. I know the sight of one once. I probably put up the post about the time two small tornados hit one block east and one block west of me, and what it felt to look out my apartment door and see the top of the funnel cloud right overhead.

I am very sad, too, about this. This part of east Texas is a gorgeous pine woodlands, largely forgotten, where understory dogwoods bloom gorgeously in a month or so. It's the last place in the world to discuss debris trails. It's just so sad.

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

it reminds me of the Challenger explosion more than anything

i was working in aerospace for a company that built the o-ring housings at the time and someone had brought in a tiny tv to watch the lift-off only to witness the disaster

then, in a flurry of blame and over-reaction department heads began to roll as managment tried to *cover their asses*

crack-downs and inspections and procedural rules came and went

thing is, there was no need

*fault* was lain elsewhere

they sure did feel guilty about something though

i am sorry for your beloved texas and the loves of those lost

So true...

[sandstar.livejournal.com]

This part of east Texas is a gorgeous pine woodlands, largely forgotten, where understory dogwoods bloom gorgeously in a month or so. It's the last place in the world to discuss debris trails. It's just so sad.

And I can't help but think, "Things like this just don't happen around these parts."

This from a girl who was born and has lived in East Texas most of her life...

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

You know, I think the scurrying and assesssing and understanding is necessary but I don't think it is good CNN copy. I wish every time a child died of abuse, or a four people were killed by a drunk driver, a similar flurry of inquiry resulted.

Despite that discordant note, I am so sorry for the victims and families of this tragedy. I just hate lax journalism.

Re: So true...

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thank goodness that nobody on the ground was hit, or so it now seems. That stuff must have been dangerous, hurtling red hot from 200,000 ft.

The media is so funny. One commentator was suggesting it takes a disaster for the people of Nacodoges to get out and speak to one another. They don't know east Texas. They must imagine it's like NYC.

Re:

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

i agree