Hurricanes

My old hometown is expected to be hit head on by Hurricane Harvey in the next two days. Corpus Christi, Texas, is in the middle of the bend of the Texas coast. There were two more or less direct hits when I was resident there, and a few other glancing blows since then. Our house was damaged both times but I still remember Hurricane Carla as being one of the most fun days I have ever spent.

We had just moved to Corpus from Monterey, California, and we were settling in, getting all four kids into the schools while also figuring out what house we would have and where it would be. In the meantime we were staying in temporary housing that felt like Army issue. When the hurricane hit, my brother and I and one of my sisters, went out into the front yard and experimented with the rain and the wind. We leaned into the wind to see what angle we could reach. We leaned backward into the wind as well to see if the wind could support us.

I also remembering finding a huge chunk of amethyst rock that had been revealed by the wind and the rain. I kept that chunk for several years. When the power went out, my mother made us come in where she had all the candles in the house lit. Since we still had excess energy from the fun we had just had, we were given the assignment of making game boards. My brother finished first, drawing and coloring a Parcheesi board, and we played Parcheesi until bedtime.