The Hour of Lead

Today--with the time before the United States and its allies bomb Iraq probably measured in mere hours--feels in some ways like it did many years ago when Hurricane Hazel passed over the rural area in North Carolina where I grew up.

I was a little scared, but excited too. School had let out early-a reason to celebrate in itself. How wonderful to have a "snow day" in September! How often in a lifetime do you weather a major hurricane.

In my little boy's eyes I saw that all hell was breaking loose: Winds, gusting to over 100 miles per hour, trees not just swaying before the power of the storm, but also bending over, some to crack, and others to be uprooted. And, the rain, the rain came in sheets, swept almost horizontal by the powerful, unforgiving winds.

The wind sounded like a locomotive bearing down on us as we sat huddled in our cinder block home, away from the windows, but listening to the news on a battery-powered portable radio purchased a few months earlier.

Then, suddenly the roaring of the wind and rain stopped-just like that. Having heard on the weather report that the eye of the storm would pass directly over the Greensboro area, my brother and I rushed outside to experience the eye.

It was simply amazing. We looked up into a blue sky through a tunnel of fog and dark clouds. The eye was not completely clear, as they were a few, stray clouds roiling around in a circle, seemingly caught in the center of the storm.

I am not sure if peace was a word that occurred to me at that point in my childhood, but in retrospect, the eye or center of the hurricane was certainly relatively calm and peaceful compared to the intensity of the weather that we had been experiencing previously.

Then, our father came to the door and shouted for us to get back into the house. This warning came just in time since the winds had just started howling again, and the rain was pelting us as we ran for the door.

Of course, people died and property damage totaled in the millions when Hurricane Hazel hit the eastern seaboard of the United States. All I could think of at the time was how "neat" it was that I was able to experience the peaceful eye of the storm.

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