K9 Tornado Warnings

It’s been a long tornado season here in Northwest Georgia.

To be fair, the “official” tornado season for this area runs from March until May. However, for the three previous years we’ve lived here, the vast majority of tornado activity tapers down around the end of April. May would get really hot, and the storms seem to subside…mostly.

But, as of just last week, we had yet another parade of storms marching through from the west, threatening our peace and safety. In fact, one hit Huntsville, Alabama last Wednesday night. Now, admittedly, that’s 60 miles from us as the crow flies. But, the storm that produced the funnel was ginormous! And, it was headed our way.

As we were watching our favorite meteorologist, Ryan Hall Ya’ll, cover the storm live on YouTube, we felt that familiar, foreboding sickness in the pits of our stomachs. So far, we have been lucky. Every one of these storms seem to get broken up by the mountain range we live on. But, that never really consoles us much. We live with the constant reminder that in April of 2011, an F4 twister crossed this same mountain range, and slammed into Trenton, which is the town just below us in the valley.

As the radar was showing the first patchwork of color engulfing our immediate location, Tank, our black lab, began barking his head off. It was raining sheets outside and we couldn’t see a thing. But, as we quieted Tank down and listened, we could clearly hear a sound like thunder that simply didn’t stop. It was just one continuous rumble. Tank was uncontrollably agitated and I told Angela, “That’s it! Down to the basement!”

We took just enough time to grab our laptops because these computers are our lifeblood. Everything about WritersWeekly and BookLocker are on them. Yes, we back them up regularly. But, if our computers were destroyed, it would be a real nightmare to get back up and running.

We do keep a suitcase filled with some clothes, toiletries, and other essentials down in the basement. We simply high-tailed it down the stairs with nothing but what we were wearing, and our computers.

Once again, we were lucky – blessed, I might say. No tornado this time. I don’t know if what we heard were some straight-line winds hitting in the uninhabited woods somewhere. Maybe it was a funnel cloud forming that never made it to ground. NOAA says that around 25% of tornadoes aren’t even detected by radar!

When Angela lived in Texas, she had a dog, Baysha, that started barking during a storm (unusual behavior) and, a few seconds later, all of the french doors in the house blew open. A tornado had touched down in her backyard. There were no watches or warnings. She and the children made it to the bathtub safely.

Angela never stops commenting on the fact that we left Florida and all the yearly hurricanes only to settle in a place where we have to worry about tornadoes. She claims to not be as concerned about the tornadoes because they pop up so quickly, as opposed to waiting and watching for a week as a hurricane barrels toward you from the ocean. I’m not sure I see the difference.

Male “Karens”

On Friday last week, I went fishing with a friend from church. We usually cross over into Alabama, and launch from a boat ramp on the Tennessee River. The area we fish offers several nice, grassy areas, rocky shorelines, and even a cove with a natural spring running into it.

On this particular day, we were going for bass, starting out in the morning with topwater poppers and buzzbaits. Later, as it warmed up, we went for Texas-rigged plastic worms so we could try to coax some monster fish out of the grass and weeds. But, we just kept catching non-keepers. After lunch and a few more attempts at dancing our worms over some lilly pads, my friend decided to change things up. It was his boat so I was game for whatever he wanted to do.

He told me that he’d brought some live worms and we were going to change out tackle for some small hooks and lead weights. On another part of the river, near the shoreline, the bottom had a lot more sandy patches. These attract bluegill and red-ear sunfish (also known as “shell crackers”) that bed down to spawn. These are small panfish that, when hungry, will hit your hook almost as soon as it hits the water. And, since they congregate in large schools, it’s not uncommon to pull one up with just about every cast.

The area we went to was lined with big, beautiful houses. One might call them mansions. Extending out from each manicured lawn was a dock with a boat house and it was here that we would find the panfish beds. After trying a few spots with some luck, we nestled along a seawall belonging to a palatial brick residence – and we hit the jackpot!

We started reeling in fish after fish. Each cast was quickly answered by a jerk of the line, and another bluegill went into the live well. We even started being choosier about the size of the fish we were keeping. There is a 50 per person daily limit in Alabama for these panfish. But, with the luck we were having, why settle for small?

It was about 4:30 in the afternoon when we started talking about when we should head back. We still needed to get back to the ramp, get the boat on the trailer, and drive back a little over an hour to where I’d left my truck. Plus, I had well over 20 fish to clean at this point. We decided to head back about 5:00 p.m.

Well, it wasn’t too much longer when we heard a man’s voice calling out, “Hey, guys?”

We looked up to see a rather portly fellow, probably pushing 60 or so, standing on his balcony in shorts and a Polo shirt. We waved, and hollered back, “Hi.”

“Listen,” the guy called down to us, “I’ve got a lot of family coming over this weekend, with a lot of kids. And, they want to fish when they’re here. I’d rather you not catch them all.”

To be clear, we were in a public waterway, fishing legally. And, no one owns exclusive rights to the river floor – even if it is just off their seawall. But, I was already starting to deal with the beginnings of a migraine headache. (I don’t think I drank enough water that afternoon.) Plus, we’d already decided it was getting late. So, I quickly responded with, “No problem.” My friend kind of nodded, and said, “Yeah.”

The guy thanked us, and went inside.

But, my friend was rather perturbed. He said, “What kind of nerve does that guy have? We have a legal right to be here and we can fish all we want!”

“I know,” was my reply. “But, we were close to heading out anyway. And, he did ask. If he’d demanded, I’d have responded differently.”

My friend understood where I was coming from but he was still taken aback that someone would actually ask us to stop fishing. And, he’s done a lot of fishing, so this must have been quite the anomaly for him.

He continued to talk about it as we secured the boat on the trailer, and part of the way home. If I’d known it would affect him that much, after answering this male “Karen” politely, I may have suggested that we stay, and catch another 10 fish or so just to make a point.

What would YOU have done?

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