Helene packs a punch

 Wife and I had a rather hectic week last week. 

She was scheduled to leave Wednesday for a girls' beach trip. She was headed down to the Fort Myers/Naples area where friends of ours have a home. The lady of the couple had invited Wife and another friend to visit for a few days. 

Monday morning, Wife hollered from the hallway into my office, asking if I had heard about the hurricane heading toward the Gulf Coast of Florida from the Caribbean. Knowing our oldest and his family (who live near Atlanta) were vacationing on the Florida panhandle for the week, I said yes, and I guess that could affect Daniel's family. 

"Uh, yeah, and remember my trip?" she asked.  

I had had a momentary lapse. 

During the day Tuesday, she received a text from Southwest Airlines saying her flight, which would have gone to Fort Myers, could be delayed or canceled. 

She spoke with her friend in Naples, and they decided to call it. Even if the storm passed them by (as it did), it would likely rain the entire time they would be there (Wednesday through Sunday).  Also, Wife did not relish the idea of flying into all of that. 

As it turned out, the storm did pass by that area for the most part, and Wife's friend reported not as much rain as she thought there might have been. You never know. But I think they made the right decision anyway. 

In another turn of events, a dear friend of ours in Little Rock passed away Monday.  She had an aneurysm burst and a stroke back in April. She was in our wedding (and Wife in hers), and she and her husband were part of our friend group during our single days and later as young marrieds back in the 80s and early 90s. He died of cancer two years ago. They had four beautiful daughters, roughly intersecting in age with our children. 

Much more to that story but suffice it to say it was and is a tremendous loss for us, and it was important for us to make it to Little Rock for the funeral Friday of last week, which we did. 

It's about a six-hour drive for us, five and a half f traffic is not terrible and we don't stop much, and we started out mid-afternoon Thursday as I finished work. We arrived at our friends' home where we were staying about 9 p.m. We came home Saturday. 

Daniel and his family cut their beach time short Thursday morning as Hurrican Helene was headed their direction. His class reunion was here this past weekend, so all along they had planned to leave the beach and come here for the weekend. Obviously, they came a little early and arrived not long after we had left. 

We were glad for them to stay here while we were gone, and happy to see them here when we got home. Of course, it was especially sweet to get time with those two grands, seven-year-old (in a week) Hank and four-year-old Ruthie. 

My point with all of this is that we were preoccupied during the time the storm was making landfall and making its way inland. With learning of our friend's passing, getting ready to go, driving over to Little Rock, attending the memorial service, visiting friends, driving back Saturday and arriving home to part of our family being here, we did not realize the extent of the damage and devastation until mid-day yesterday when we had time to catch up on current events. It's just unbelievable. 

Here where I live, just south of Nashville, we had substantial rains off and on for about three days and maybe a stray limb here and there from some wind. In other parts of the state, however, there was terrible flooding. Western North Carolina was hit hard, especially the beautiful mountain city of Asheville.  (Blog friend Jeff is in southwest Virginia; hoping Helene missed them.)

With damage affecting at least a half-dozen states, although I am sure it has happened, I don't remember a hurricane in my lifetime having such a wide path, and having effects as far inland as Helene has. 

Hoping things will calm down now. Blessings and peace to those who must deal with the aftermath. 

What's old might be new again

I have witnessed some evolutions in my lifetime. 

Take the telephone, for example. When I was a child, in the house in which I primarily grew up, we had a telephone attached to the wall in the kitchen. There was another one on my parents' bedside table, wired to the wall, and another in the upstairs hall with similar wiring between my brother's and my bedrooms.  

Because the upstairs phone was near the door to my brother's room, he could easily take it into his room and act as if he had his own phone in his own room. But I was quick to remind him he did not. Alas, I could not stretch either the wire from the phone into the wall outlet or the phone cord of the receiver far enough to get it into my room. It annoyed me to no end that he had his "own phone." (And again, he didn't.) 

These were telephones with rotary dials. Eventually there were the "touchtone" phones, which that house never had. When my dad died in 2006, the bedroom and upstairs rotary phones were still there. He had gotten a push-button phone in the kitchen, but it was still "pulse" and not touchtone, meaning even though it had the buttons, it still ran on a pulse system, however that worked. (My dad was anything but progressive, by the way. I am sure he decided it cost too much to upgrade to touchtone.)

I even remember when there was only one telephone company, some version of "Bell," depending on where you lived. And I believe that was, at the time, all part of AT&T. I'm way oversimplifying, but as I recall, the Justice Department broke up the conglomerate phone company via an antitrust lawsuit, which gave way to the various phone companies. 

That was plenty to transpire. But who in their wildest dreams would or could have predicted what eventually happened -- that those phones attached to walls would become obsolete? And that many of us would hold in our hands a telephone that is also a camera, a GPS and a personal computer (among many other things)? 

What I keep waiting for is for the "home phone" or landline to come back into vogue the way vinyl records have. We went from records to eight-track to cassette to digital to . . . what's that? Vinyl? Yep. Full circle. Many musical purists believe vinyl is, well, the purest way to listen to music again. 

And old stereo systems, once pieces of furniture with a turntable and built-in speakers, restored to their original woodgrain and with perhaps some tweaking to those speakers? Those are now collectors' items. 

So, if you have an old wall or desk telephone laying around awaiting disposal, wait a few years to see if it will also return to fashionableness as a retro must-have. You might already be ahead of your time. 

 

Good reading, good writing

I have mentioned in the past an excellent independent bookstore near me called Parnassus. 

It is co-owned by Nashville author Ann Patchett. In addition to having a selection of books that makes readers like yours truly salivate, there are frequent programs and events that feature authors. In the past I have seen and heard John Grisham, David Baldacci, Mitch Albom and Tom Hanks, to name a few. 

Sometimes it is a paid event (such as the one with Tom Hanks) that includes a book, but many times it's free, like the one I attended last night that featured authors William Kent Krueger and Marc Cameron. 

Krueger is a favorite of mine. His "bread and butter" has been the Cork O'Connor mystery series, all set in his home state of Minnesota. But he has also written several standalones, including one of my all-time favorites, Ordinary Grace. He just wrote number twenty in the O'Connor series, which stresses me out because I have only read three and I don't know when I will get to the rest of them. 

As an aside, that's what series books do to me. Because of my mild anal-retentiveness, I will only read them in order. And with so many books on my TBR, I am reluctant to stop everything and catch up on the series. I am about six behind on The No. One Ladies Detective Agency and have only read half of Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series. 

Others include Greg Iles's Penn Cage series; Lee Child's Jack Reacher and Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti. I have to resign myself to the fact it is not likely I will ever read all of these in my lifetime. 

But I digress. 

Last night, as usual with these programs, was delightful. Krueger is an engaging speaker, and I loved hearing him talk about the evolution of the O'Connor series and how his standalones have come from his heart. 

I had never heard of the other author, Marc Cameron, a former U.S. Marshall who penned the Jack Ryan series that was part of the Clancy universe. He has numerous other works under his belt, including (incorporating the writing maxim, "write what you know") a series about a U.S. Marshall. I could get pretty stressed thinking I need to get started on this too. 

During Q and A, the authors were asked about plot and character development. Both said they have a good idea where the story is going as they write, but also said characters will often reveal themselves to them as the story progresses. 

Fascinating stuff. I left wondering about that novel I have thought for many years lies within me. 

Authors William Kent Krueger (left) and Marc Cameron (right) speaking at Parnassus Bookstore, Nashville