Growing up Southern: March 24, 2018

Sometimes I see how smug some people are with their positions in life, and it makes me wonder. Things can and do change, after all.

Growing up in a small country grocery store, I heard and saw a lot. Some made a great impression on me. For example, I’ve mentioned the tornado that struck our rural community in 1947. People talked about it for years. One man in particular has stayed on my mind off and on for years. He taught me a good lesson in how not to take life for granted.

He told us all a story, while we sat around an old pot-bellied stove, of how his family had hidden in a storm shelter during the storm. When he thought it had passed, he came out alone. In his words:

“Everything was gone. The house, the barn, the sheds, the truck, One tree still stood. I walked over to it and looked. There, stretched across two stacks of bricks, was a wide plank my girls had been using for play as a ‘kitchen stove.’ Everything was still there, even some mason jar lids they were using to make mud pies. The storm had left it untouched.

“I looked around at the place. Everything I had was gone, wiped clean. But there under that tree was that little play spot made of a board and some bricks. I walked over to it and flicked one of the jar lids with my finger. It tumbled off with no more pressure than that. The spot was all that had survived the storm.”

Thinking about it, we have some stormy days ahead in America. One can only wonder how many empires will fall and how many seemingly insignificant things will survive. Things can and do change.

Dinosaurs first appeared on earth about 200 million years ago. They became the dominant life-forms, until their sudden extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period about 65 million years ago. That is when a meteor struck the earth near the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and created the so-called "Fifth Extinction." The only land creatures to survive were the small animals that could hide from the dinosaurs in caves and crevices.

Life’s a bitch, ain’t it? At least that’s what the privileged dinosaurs probably thought. After all, 135 million years is a pretty good run. In the end though, all their size, genetic good fortune, and power couldn’t save them. I can almost hear them tweeting, with a last breath, “Fake news, fake news.”