Someone asked me an interesting question the other day: If you could drop one word or phrase right now from the common vernacular, what would it be?
2020 has given us so many choices. I'm sick of "pandemic." I hate "cancel culture." I've had it up to here with "quarantine," but I'm cool keeping it just to see all the fun ways people misspell it. Until now, my least favorite phrase of 2020 was "social distancing." Just like "conscious uncoupling" is a ludicrous way to say you're getting divorced, "social distancing" is just an awkwardly polite way of saying "STAY AWAY FROM ME, PLAGUE RAT!"
But now I've got a NEW least favorite word of 2020: derecho.
Let's just call it what it was: a sideways tornado. Or a Midwest hurricane. Maybe a tornadicane? No matter what you call it, it sucked. Specifically, it sucked branches off trees, siding off homes, trampolenes off backyards, and power and cable and internet away from pretty much everyone. Thanks to our uninvited derecho drop-in Monday, this has NOT been an ideal week. I suppose it could've been worse. The way 2020's been going, we should probably be thankful it wasn't a sharkderecho.
Those winds were probably strong enough to fling a wayward shark or two. That was a mighty impressive storm. I've always yearned to see a tornado, just once, with my own eyes. After this week, I find myself slightly less excited by the prospect. This was close enough.
I knew it was coming. I was on Facebook (DOING WORK STUFF, I SWEAR) when friends of mine from Des Moines posted they'd just lived through the worst storm of their lives. An hour later, my friends in Iowa City were saying the same thing. Uh oh. I knew which way the wind was blowing -- literally. As the severe thunderstorm warning was issued for the Quads, it was right when I normally leave for lunch. This was a dilemma. Do I ride out the storm in the relative safety of the newspaper office? Or would I be better off racing home before it hit?
I opted for the latter, preferring my car to be in a garage instead of our parking lot. Crossing into Illinois and looking west, I could see the beast coming. Storm sirens were raging by the time I pulled into the garage. I entered my house to a chorus of concerned meows from my feline home security team -- who, despite never leaving the house in their lives, strangely know more about weather than any of us ever will. "Ha," I thought to myself, "maybe I'll get stuck at home and score an afternoon off! Win!"
Smart people would have immediately gone to the basement (where the smart cats already were.) This idiot columnist instead opted to stand in front of the back door watching it roll in. But it was okay -- after all, I'm a professional. One year ago, I spent an hour in a Henry County basement training to become a certified National Weather Service storm spotter. It was time to put my vast expertise to use.
Well, I sure spotted it, alright. My first clue was when the storm door suddenly flew open and almost shattered into a million pieces. My second clue was when about one-tenth of the tree in my backyard came crashing down, raining a barrage of walnuts onto my head.
"GOLLY GEE!" I exclaimed. (AND THAT'S MY STORY AND I'M STICKING TO IT BECAUSE THIS IS A FAMILY NEWSPAPER AND BESIDES, I MAY HAVE A SLIGHT WALNUT CONCUSSION.)
I locked the doors down tight and joined the cats in the basement for twenty minutes of not-unlike-the-end-of-the-world sound effects. I don't have to tell you. If you're reading this, odds are good you're from the area and probably didn't sleep through the derecho yourself. Let's just say it wasn't pleasant.
I was luckier than many. The trees in my yard looked like one of those crash diet "after" pictures, but remained mostly upright. My house appears to be intact. My car was safe in the garage. I even got my wish. Trees had crashed down across both ends of my alley, essentially trapping me at home. As it turns out, though, snow days are considerably less fun when there's no internet, no phone service, no power, and no snow. That's why if you were cruising around Rock Island in the afterstorm, you may have witnessed a rare sight in nature: yours truly performing manual labor, pushing a downed tree out of the way in order to GET to work. What have you done to me, derecho?
That night, I went out in search of food, assuming only a minority of us were in the dark. How naive I was. I drove all the way to John Deere Road before discovering the only place with juice was the Wal-mart corridor, and about 300 other people had already beat me in line. I kept driving all the way to Silvis, assuming I'd find SOMETHING open. Nope. I followed the river back to Rock Island in darkness, crossed over to Davenport and up to Locust and then Kimberly. No power anywhere and I was getting mighty hungry.
Finally, I saw it in the distance: the beautiful, unnatural glow of lights, food, commerce, and t-shirts featuring any number of wolves howling at any number of moons. If the apocalypse ever hits, I'm now quite sure the only things left will be cockroaches, zombies, and the Walcott truck plaza. After an hour wait in the drive-thru lane, I had what I'm pretty sure was the best Quarter Pounder of my life, even if most of the ketchup ended up on my shirt. Who's gonna notice in a pandemic blackout?
Returning home MUCH later than expected, all I had to do was enjoy peace and quiet. And pitch darkness. And the longest night of my life. More on that next week.
Here's hoping you and yours have remained upright. Let's remove "derecho" from the dictionary before 2020 starts liking the way it sounds.
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