A new warning came down Friday that a line of storms would bring wind and hail. So, naturally, you go outside.
And we might not have received the 2.5-inch diameter hail we were promised …
But this was painful enough. We’re standing in the garage, between our cars and the ice starts racing down from the sky. Brian’s car is in the driveway, unprotected by the safety of any roofing or tree limbs.
A tarp! I have a tarp!
Knowing that hail storms are brief, but violent, I took the most direct route, which was around the exterior of the house. Barefoot. And when I got to the back of the house it really started coming down. And that began to sting. Hail on soft, moist earth isn’t so bad, even for a tenderfoot. Hail on cement is not a lot of fun.
I race back, now covering my head with the tarp.
I have a tarp! I need a plan!
We decided to cover the windshield.
About eight seconds after we have the great green piece of protective plastic spread out evenly — which exposed tender skin to more angry ice — the hail stopped falling. The yard was covered. There were abnormally large piles of the stuff everywhere. There was an unearthly moisture in the air as the hail steamed itself into oblivion. It looked like an X-Files setting.
The car was undamaged.
The Yankee got these two tigers from the balloon guy at Niffer’s the other night. We see him there often. This has become his regular gig the last few years. On weekends he is at the baseball stadium in clown makeup making balloons. He’s often here or at parties, or delivering a manifesto on the current political climate, while he makes a balloon beanie hat. The guy’s talented. He said it took him about two years before his hands could create while he chatted with customers.
Nice guy. He carries a duffle bag stuffed full of balloons. He said he spends thousands of dollars a year on the stuff. This is his job.
There’s a feature story in that guy.
I found her, in the checkout line at the grocery store, reading the Enquirer. Hard to believe this has been six years. Beth Holloway has a new show coming out. (The good people at WBRC struggled with the math on that story.)
“Vanished with Beth Holloway,” will follow real life cases of missing persons; digging into the mysteries behind them and searching for clues to solve the cases.
I liked it better when John Walsh and Robert Stack did that show.
If anything, she’s proved it isn’t hard to sneak into a Peruvian jail.
