Mr. Clarence Tangles with Mother Nature

There was a time during my growing up years in Melbourne Community when Mother Nature started taking her best shots at us country folk, sending big angry tornadoes roaring our way. After surviving a number of these storms, Papa became one of the first men in our community to install an underground shelter in our back yard. It was a big white prefab unit, sunk into the ground, and it quickly became the hot item. A number of our neighbors followed suit but not everyone thought they were a great idea.

I remember hearing about a fellow in a nearby community who was hesitant about the new prefab storm cellars. We’ll call this man Mr. Clarence. He was an older gentleman who was notoriously tight with his money. Mr. Clarence didn’t see any reason to lay out cold hard cash for such a new-fangled store-bought contraption when his family could just hide out in the hallway like they always had. He held out for a while, too, but eventually his wife nagged him into buying one.

After that, Mr. Clarence took his family down in his storm cellar at the first hint of a warning. Each time his place escaped damage. Mr. Clarence was just about to decide he had surely wasted his money on that fool thing when the biggest tornado of the season begun its approach. He herded the family down into the prefab cellar to wait it out. The wind had barely quit blowing when Mr. Clarence climbed the stairs and lifted the big door. His eyes widened when he saw his apple tree pulled up by the roots and he gasped at the trash strewn across the yard. But when he turned around and found a few scattered boards where his barn had once stood, Mr. Clarence looked up in the sky.

“Now, that—” he said, “is more like it!”

Hugs, Shellie