The Rains of Ranchipur Recalled

For the last month central Oklahoma has received 12.5 " of rain, the most rain recorded in April since 1942 and May is by all accounts our rainiest month!  (Update: May 6 between midnight and noon we've received another 1 1/2" of rain.) All records have been broken and ten of those inches fell during my flower planting season. Our home sits on a slight decline, not a mountain which slides into the river, which translates to our famous clay soil sucking up the rain and keeping the ground squishy.  It also causes plants to wilt and drown from too much water, but it does not cause earthquakes.

Wilted perennials sitting in rain soaked clay, mud. 

 

Only droughts in Oklahoma cause the ground to split wide open, revealing baked red clay. 

Two weeks ago, with my never call it quits attitude I dug my first hole for the Purple Salvia. Water, not black oil, bubbled up and laughed at me.  Then it began to rain for days on end.

1900 spring rains in Norman, Ok before University Blvd was paved. 

My sister and I share a memory that we often recall during stormy seasons and heavy rains. Only a phone call away we recount the color of the skies before the storms, how high did the water rise, how many minutes or hours have we been hovered under a storm, what yard furniture was destroyed, windows broken, trees fallen or roofs peeled back. We talk in descriptions like yellowish green skies before the storm, howling winds, thunderous booms from lightning and pelting rains, but we didn't laugh when we were little children. 

One dreary winter day back in the last century when the Ford Thunderbird owned the road, when families watched black and white TV shows like "Gunsmoke", Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "I Love Lucy", and "The $64,000 Question" two little girls walked to the Coleman Theatre in Miami, Oklahoma to watch a movie called "The Rains of Ranchipur." 

With money enough to buy a large dill pickle each, we found cushioned seats toward the front of the grand theatre. Sitting under the large chandelier imagining royalty sitting in the two balcony wings we felt rich.

It didn't take long for the movie to go from a boring romance to torrents of rain upon rain until the earth began to move and shake causing massive craters in the earth's surface right in front of us. We screamed when we saw people running and falling into the abyss. The cracks became crevices and then ravines of raging water and death traps. We tried to stop the people in the movie with our directions, "No, don't go across the bridge. No, don't run blindly down the streets, they might open and swallow you!"  

Then suddenly the  mountains gave way, the dam broke, trees and buildings all washed in violent waves down the river busting the bridge wide open and sending people to their deaths. Someone in the movie we liked must have fallen into the river at that point, because I remember us crying. 

When we stepped out into the Saturday afternoon daylight cold rains just shy of icy pellets were pouring down,.  We stood under the Marquee in hopes that our mother may have paid attention to the weather and rescue her little girls from the long walk home.  With the blaring moo cow horn we saw our mother parked up the street waiting to take her girls home and any neighbors we saw along the way. Our bodies crawled into the station wagon and held each others hand. 

To this day I don't recall any of the plot even though great names like Lana Turner, Michael Rennie, and Fred McMurray starred in the show. If anything, the movie has sealed the relationship between two sisters. It has been our benchmark on a deluge of rain, and it does rain in Oklahoma most often in dramatic fashion. 

The security for us was that we didn't live in India, so of course, what happened in the movie wouldn't happen in Oklahoma.  For years the term earthquake brought brought back visuals in black and white of people screaming as they fell into the earth's innards.

When our family bought a set of 1959 World Book Encyclopedia's I earmarked page 2168 on earthquakes. It reads: Earthquakes are among the most terrible things that can happen on earth. They have toppled huge cities and started great first, killing thousands of persons. They have started tidal waves that have swept up cities on seacoasts. Sometimes the earth itself splits open. (I think perhaps that statement created more fear than the movie.) 

Seventy years later an internet description reads: An earthquake is a sudden shaking of the Earth's surface caused by the release of energy in the Earth's crust. Not nearly as terrifying as the WBE in the 1950's.  

This weekend the sun is shining. I will gather my tools and my flat of flowers to plant before more rain returns on Tuesday. For two older and wiser women we will not drive into water on the roads, nor do we worry about earthquakes, but we do take cover from tornadoes. 

Silver Linings in the Angst of More Tornadoes

Clouds that roar and wear tones of faded dirty greens and yellows cause me to stop and feel the air around me.  Growing up in Oklahoma set my internal clock for air pressure changes.  Sirens and weather alerts merely bring my fear to the forefront.  Sunday, May 19 found us sitting inside the Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City watching one of my PHMS students, Piper Hoskins, graduate from OCU Law School.  Truly, it was a fulfilling moment for me, and for the hundreds of parents and friends of these students.  Then the sirens rang and my heart skipped a beat.  This room wasn't safe, no matter what anyone said.  These kids deserved a chance to make this world a better place, and the prayers of many beamed to the heavens.

A Silver lining in a Rainbow just north of Edmond.

We were lucky, but those in Edmond, and other parts of Oklahoma were not, homes and  lives were lost that day.  We waited out the storm  before driving back to Kansas, and then watched as the sky erupted into a deep rolling black and blue bruised cloud building over our friends and families in Norman.  There was nothing we could do but drive north and pray.  Sometimes the helplessness adds to the fear and hurt. Norman was spared but Shawnee took a hit. The voice of Gary England on the radio kept Jack and me informed of the tornado's path; my mind wondered through a lifetime of stormy memories.  Mother's words floated back to me, as they do most often when my heart is heavy, "Look for the silver lining in everything, Letty."   Then this rainbow appeared on the back side of the Edmond storm; I thought the worst was over and felt relief.

My mind or perhaps my heart, drifted back to people and places that once made a difference in my life before they died a tragic death.  One special person was Dr. Sarah Reed.  She was the Director of the Emporia State University Library School from 1975-78; the same years I lived in Greensburg and worked on my Master's degree.  She was a gracious gentle woman who allowed me to bring my little daughter, Katy, to weekend workshops.  Sometimes Katy played dolls and colored in her office while Sarah worked at her desk, and I sat in class.  My favorite memory was when she invited us over for tea.  Her antique furniture matched her charm and grace.  We sat in her living room and drank hot tea from china cups, discussing books and how computers might someday change our world, while Katy frolicked on her red cushioned love seat, and Sarah smiled.  The summer of 1978,  Sarah died a violent death while on a dinner theater showboat on a lake near Pomona, Kansas when a freak tornado rolled the boat killing three friends from ESU, and leaving another hole in my heart.     (for more on the Pomona tragedy read the article by Stu Beitler
<http://www3.gendisasters.com/kansas/5486/pomona-ks-tornado-hits-dinner-theater-showboat-june-1978>


Monday, May 20 a little after 3:00 my daughter, who lives in OKC,  texted me, "I'm safe.  Don't worry."  My head screamed and I called her immediately.  "Safe from what?"  Her voice pounded with her heartbeat as she explained what was happening just south of her in Moore.   Within minutes I turned on the TV and was faced with the horror of one More tornado.

For the loss of lives, especially our school children, my heart aches.  The devastation, like Joplin, Greensburg, Udall, and so many more will take years of hard work to overcome,  and for a few there will be some silver linings.

May 19, setting sun after the storms had passed along I-35.