April 28, 1950 (1)

The Clyde Tornado: A Day I’ll Never Forget

April 28, 1950 is firmly etched in my memory as one of the defining moments of my early teen years, and even a defining moment of my life.  I know I thought that about the outbreak of war in Korea, but this was something totally different, and quite personal.   At times, I wake up in the night having dreamed about a threatening tornado.

To set the scene for my story, let me go back to the day before.  Jeff and Alene Giffin lived in the house where we had lived upon our first arrival in Clyde in 1941.   They had three boys, whom I sometimes spent time with.   For some reason, they invited me to stay for supper on Thursday night, the 27^th.    The family was not religious, and Jeff was openly antagonistic to the Christian faith.   I once heard him say,  “The best thing that could ever happen to Clyde would be to set off a stick of dynamite underneath all the churches.”   The rest of the family was respectful of my faith commitments.   As we sat down to eat that night, they said, “Norman’s family usually prayers before supper.  Don’t you think we ought to give thanks?”  Jeff said, “Nah, I have to work for what goes on this table.”   I didn’t think much about it at the time, but I was about to have a reason to give serious thought to his irreverent comment.

The next day was Friday, and I didn’t go to school, which meant I wouldn’t be stopping by the Griffin house to socialize with the boys.   Instead, Oliver Werst took us took our 4-H team to a dairy judging contest in Eastland.  It was a prep event for our trip to Texas A and M, which I’ve already described.   Our “enemy,”  the Fisher county team, was also there, so we had plenty of time to deepen our rivalry, and feed our resentment before going to Texas A and M.  Later I would realize that if I had not participated in that judging contest,  I might have gotten caught in the storm.

The whole day was cloudy and still.  I came home at about 4 o’clock, I would guess.   Daddy needed a haircut, so we went over to Murl’s house.  Murl was his twin brother.  Mama stayed home.  Murl sometimes did his barber work. These were the days before storm warnings were issued on the radio.   My aunt kept watching the clouds.  She made two or three trips back into the house to ask my uncle and my Dad to come look at the clouds.   They kept teasing her.  I remember Daddy saying, “Are you going to run from clouds the rest of your life?”

After her third trip she persuaded the men to come to the door.  Daddy was only half way through his haircut.   We stood at the door and watched the swirling clouds.   Suddenly a funnel dropped to the ground.   I couldn’t exactly judge the distance, but we all thought it was right over the barn.   In reality it was more than a quarter of a mile away.  We didn’t know whether it was coming toward us or moving away from us, although we now know it was moving away from us. 

For just a few seconds we stood there in a daze, knowing what had happened but still unable to accept the reality of it.  We quickly decided on a place of refuge.   There was a pump house next to the well.  It was semi-sunken, so we figured we had the best chance there.   There were five of us cramped into a space about 3’ X 6’.   At least that’s the best I can remember it.  It was really small for five people.   The grownups would say, “you kids don’t look.”   But you had to look.  I describe this scene in my book on holiness, and give it as an example of what is theologically known as “the mysterious tremendum” – the awful mystery.  It was a bit like being drawn to the fascination of a  horror movie and scared to death at the same time.

Daddy and Murl stood outside for a few minutes and decided that it was too dangerous to attempt any other plan of refuge.  We had a storm cellar at our house, but it was a good half – mile away.  My grandparents, were probably three hundred yards away.  Both places had cellars, but we weren’t sure we could make it, so we decided to take our chances in the pump house.

Talk about scared.  That’s the worst fear I’ve ever known in my life.  At one point I began urinating down the side of my leg, and I couldn’t stop.   I said, “I’m peeing in my britches, and I can’t do anything about it.”  The humor broke the tension for all of us and made our wait easier.  Scriptwriters often insert comic relief into tense situation just to make the tension easier for the reader or the viewer to handle.   We had our comic relief, and it was at my expense.

At one point, we were so sure that the storm was going to hit where we were, that we locked arms.  Daddy and Murl got a firm grip on the pipes, and we waited for the crisis that never came.   In a few minutes, they decided to chance another look and the storm was gone.