BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

And we thought Mayfest was bad. The only thing that would surprise anybody now is if Fort Worth sprouted an active volcano.

Every customer who comes into the beauty shop has a different tale to tell about the tornado that tore through town last week. Earlene Whitehead drove through the eye of the storm in her Geo Metro. Mayor Stubby Bean got locked in a walk-in cooler. Sister Modesta Steptoe fell down 30 flights of stairs but was unhurt when she landed on Sheriff Strange.

Accountant Arnold Strickner lost hundreds of tax returns but found half a sofa, a portable putting green and an autographed picture of Ruta Lee. Letha Collins, who can't get into her law office, has started making housecalls. And the storm blew away Principal Mulroony's bad toupee.

We all marvel at the weird quirks of nature that transported filing cabinets for blocks but left a Donny Osmond poster untouched. What does it mean?

My best friend Brandi says we should pull up stakes and move to Alaska. But 112 degrees in August is better than minus 40 any day and our mosquitoes are just the right size. Just to be on the safe side, however, we have equipped the downstairs closet with all the necessities of life--VCR, microwave, an ice chest full of beer. It's a tight squeeze but you can play Twister without the actual game. We plan to spend every evening there until the spring storm season is over.

We count ourselves really lucky. Sonny was pulling his truck into the bottling plant when the twister struck. He watched as it lifted a case of Ol' Red into the sky. Days later somebody called to say the soda pop was found in a tree by a couple of boys in Baton Rouge. They drank it on the spot.

I said Sonny should contact the Tornado Debris Project at the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. The project catalogues and analyzes stuff that is carried long distances by tornadic thunderstorms. After a storm, scientists at the school send press releases to counties downwind asking people to watch for items that might have been deposited there.

Miracles do happen. Some cases from the 1400 page book, "Significant Tornados" by Thomas P. Grazulis:

--In 1913 an Alabama, a tornadic thunderstorm carried a pillow 20 miles.

--In 1939 a piece of plate glass in Illinois was carried 25 miles.

--In Oklahoma in 1949, 13 cattle were carried 1/4 mile and put down unharmed.

--A 1950 storm in Clyde, Texas picked up a small refrigerator and left it on top of a telephone pole.

--In 1954 a dog was seen being picked up by a storm in New Richmond, Wisconsin and returned on his own four hours later.

--Cows that were picked up by a storm in Illiopolis, Illinois in 1963, acted strange for several days after their adventure.

You can read about odd things like this at the Tornado Project Online, www.tornadoproject.com.

I just hope somebody finds Principal Mulrooney's toupee.