I Found A Picture
Last Wednesday night (April 27, 2011) seemed especially difficult. East Tennessee was under at least a Tornado warning for 10 straight hours. From 7:30 p.m. to midnight, we had 1 vicious storm after another. It was relentless. Reprieves lasted at most 15 minutes between the storms.
Each and everyone of those storms either did or could have produce tornadoes. I had radar from Weather Underground and a local TV station the entire time. I quit counting tornadoes or possible tornadoes after 20.
Violent winds blowing one direction only to reverse course on a dime and immediately violently blow 180 degrees in the other direction. Hailstones the size of tennis balls pounding the house and cars were deafening, even on our shingle roof.
Trees and bushes were shredded of their new greenery. The hours of violence and huddling in the basement was extraordinary. Never before have I seen such an event.
Granted, east Tennessee only had 6 deaths compared to Alabama, so our troubles were relatively minor.
(Outtabox, how'd you do in Mississippi?)
Well, Thursday, as planned, I played golf. There were divots and marks from the repeated hail storms all over the course, including the greens. Every inch of several greens were pot marked with divots.
There was also some other things that were quite sobering.
Strewn all over the golf course and my yard 30 miles away and in places all over east Tennessee were small pieces of shredded roofing material. The largest pieces were 1 square foot, but most were 2 or 3 inches square. All over east Tennessee you can look down and see these shreds of black roofing paper.
Tuscaloosa is 350 miles from mid eastern Tennessee. I am told people are finding in their yards canceled checks with addresses in Alabama.
Seeing all of this made me and still finds me heartbroken and very, very sombre.
On the golf course, I also found a picture. It had a small tear. The picture shows a young girl, probably 6 or 7 years old, inside a room. She has short, dark hair and wearing a pink, summer outfit. One wall has magazines neatly stacked on shelves to the ceiling. There is an old, electric typewriter in front of the little girl. She is looking at the camera. On the wall in front of her, there is a sign. In the picture, you can only read part of what is written, most of which is in cursive .
"Firs....
Ligh....
On A
Sunday Morn...
by
John Ders...."
On the back of the picture, there is handwritten "12/87".
Whose picture is this please?
(I have the picture scanned in as a PDF, and I cannot yet save it here at rantrave.com. Cypress, do you have any suggestions? Mr. Layton? I would like to post it here.)
UPDATE - 12 months ago
Whoa.
In another field in east Tennessee, today we found a bank statement from the Alabama Rural Electric Federal Credit Union with a named person's social security number.
We found a Rainesville, Alabama, bank statement with a person's private information.
We found part of a newspaper advertisement for "Panda Buffet" in a Tuscaloosa newspaper.
We found whole checks from First Federal Bank in Fort Payne, Alabama.
We found an "outstanding achievement award" for some young lady.
We found part of newspaper from the Commercial Appeal (which is in Memphis probably 500 miles from here).
We have bags and bags of debris.