On Monday – a bright, sunny afternoon – I was driving along Lorne Avenue on my way out of the city when I saw a cloud of dust drifting strongly from one side of the road to the other. As I drove through the dusty blast, I looked to the right to see what was causing it. In the parking lot of an industry there, where no vehicles sat, a small whirlwind was kicking up quite a fuss. The way the buildings were situated in relation to the mini-twister meant the dust that arose, rather than simply being dispersed in a broad manner, was shooting straight across the road as though it was coming out of a blower.
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This little phenomenon and coverage of the terrible tornadoes in Kansas on the weekend, got me reflecting on an incident more than 40 years ago that cemented my father’s status in my eyes as my hero. He and I and my younger brother Steve, then about five years old, I was ten, were standing in a cornfield, doing some job I can’t remember. Maybe fixing fence. The corn wasn’t high – it wouldn’t have reached my waist – but was a good, healthy, green crop. It was a beautiful sunny day, just like this past Monday. All of a sudden, my dad shouted excitedly at us to look behind us and as we did we could see something coming towards us that was twisting all the top leaves of the corn stalks. It was not frightening – just fascinating – as it steadily came our way. Just before it veered off to the east, as though to miss us, my father grabbed the straw hat off my brother’s head – it might well have been a straw cowboy hat – and tossed it into the middle of the tough little twister.
The hat shot quickly into the air and followed the twister’s movements in ever-widening circles as it rose into the sky. Higher and higher it went, and as he watched it go, my brother broke into sobs, not yet old enough to be able to appreciate the free science lesson being perfectly performed in front of our eyes.
At some point, a hawk joined the party, flying into the twister and resting his expansive spread-out wings on the outside of the updraft, giving himself a good long rest as he let nature take control of the navigating for a while. So, atop the twister rode hawk and straw hat, like some sort of heavenly merry-go-round. So high and far away did both bird and bonnet go that they both eventually disappeared from our view altogether, much to my amazement and to my brother’s despair while my father stood by with the biggest smile on his face.
At the time, of course, I believed that Dad knew exactly what was going to happen to that hat as he tossed it into the whirlwind. But being a Dad myself now, of the same age he was about that time, I realize you get lucky sometimes with a marvelous trick or two that makes a man look like a veritable Ben Franklin.
It’s rare to see a whirlwind in the city as I did the other day. With all the buildings and trees, I suppose, it’s hard for them to get started. But I remember them dancing along in our dusty farmyard and laneway all the time, especially in the dead of summer. And to this day, when I’m out in the country and see a couple of hawks enjoying a free ride on the top of a summer twister, I think back to that day in the cornfield and wonder where my brother’s straw hat ended up.
And did another Dad on another farm point to the sky sometime later that day to show his boys a small straw hat that was falling mysteriously to earth from out of the heavens? If that happened, I suppose, their shock at seeing it return to land might have even exceeded ours at seeing it leave.
Must be a sermon in there somewhere.
©2007 Jim Hagarty
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