Another of my childhood heroes is gone. Even though I met him just one time in a one-room school house in a rural Maine town some fifty years ago, I have not forgotten the experience. He was one of those men who command your attention. To my 12-year-old eyes, he seemed god-like.
This and the following photo courtesy of HomeofHeroes.com
My e-friend and frequent commenter Ralph Romero from southern Colorado had a comment on the flying Oldsmobile story: “Great story. I had a 1976 Oldsmobile Omega Brougham. . .great car. However, it did NOT have the ability to fly! I tried it a few times! Why, yes, there was beer involved!”
In the 46+ years I have been (legally) driving, I have owned just about one of everything and two or three of a few. In fact, my very first automobile after I got my license in the fall of 1963 was a 1956 Olds 88 that my grandfather surrendered to me when he decided to give up driving. Along with it came about ten well worn tires which I managed to rotate around and keep it propped up on inflated wheels most days. That car must have weighed as much as today’s average bus. It contained a substantial amount of steel (one of my aunts suggested the frame was probably cast iron).
Summer weather on the high plains can accurately be described as long periods of boring interspersed with brief periods of potentially fatal. At about 4 p.m. on August 16th I stepped out of my laboartory in Brush, Colorado to see this tornado stretching across the sky directly to the south as a thunderstorm began to graze by the eastern edge of the town. It was too far away for me to see the base and know whether or not it was touching the ground. Later we learned that a barn about ten miles to the south was turned into kindling and scattered over a mile-long stretch of prairie. A valuable stallion in the barn was injured so badly it had to be put down.
A twister of this type is sometimes called a “rope tornado.” I’ve seen a bunch of ropey funnel clouds, but never one that descended all the way to the ground. I ran to my car, got out my camera and snapped a few shots. An hour later on my home computer I sent the shot included here to the Denver NBC affiliate, KUSA-TV, Channel 9. Weather forecaster Kathy Sabine ran the shot 4 times between 5P.M. and 10:30. The next morning John LaPorte of the Fort Morgan Times called to say he’d seen the shot and asked if I’d share. It spanned the upper front page of Tuesday afternoon’s edition. http://www.fortmorgantimes.com/ci_15804119?IADID=Search-www.fortmorgantimes.com-www.fortmorgantimes.com
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