to rna do hu nt ing
《《Click on pic to link to a 2003 mp3 track》》
There are a lot of extraordinary things I have experienced. Cataclysmic, magic, extra sensory, extra terrestrial, unexplainable, inexplicable, supernatural, and some I call miracles.
When I was 18 a dear, wise teacher in my High School's English Department did my astrological wheel. He said that having my horoscope was like living the lottery. If the cash was the range of experiences I was to have in life, I would be a billionaire.
The thing is is that a lot of this shit is so out - of - the - ordinary that there is a lot of speculation as to my sanity and judgement as to the real life validity of these events. Let me put it this way: they were as real to me as real can be percieved.
The first thing that comes to mind to me is when I had a tornado, I believe it was an EF- 4, land on my car and push it from 5mph-55mph in neutral. This occurred on my birthday, November 10th, 2002, in Nashville, TN on Old Nashville Highway shortly after dark.
I rarely speak of this story, few have had it spun from my cheeks, and I have never, save a written rap song in ozenoz:one, described it in detail.
I had driven to Murfreesboro,TN to reclaim a signed Medeski Martin and Wood DVD my ex, who had me falsely charged and dumped in jail the year before shortly after moving there, had kept. Plus, I hate to say it, but I had watched the weather channel, and saw the storm fronts near the whole span of the continental U.S. long converging from North and South. I promptly watched movie "Twister" on the big screen in the West Chester University Hockey Team house that I lived in, and prepared for the challenge.
It was my little sister's 9th birthday and she was having a slumber party and had let me know she would be up late for me to drop her a present at Mom and Dad's house. I selected a Tazmanian Devil card from the grocery, you know the "Looney Toons" character who would spin around into a tornado to run? I slipped some money inside, wrote her a message and dropped it to her cute innocent smile at the backdoor.
I didn't even go home.
This was it, the showdown of two fronts, one man in a two - door 1994 Honda Civic Hatchback, one miserly ex - fiancee, and fireworks expected to lay to waste. (R.I.P.)
I had a long drive, oh yeah, I was coming from Philadelphia, PA. I took the long haul through PA into the night, down 71 through North Carolina, and further on into Tennessee. This is where the fireworks began. The clouds coming through the Smokies in north eastern Tennessee lit up for miles and hours it seemed with something I may never myth bust. It was like there was a military war going on, bombs exploding, tracers running, the clouds lit up in bright flashes and red seeping hues on their undersides. The action rose so high, that once in awhile you would see a cap of cumulus cloud formation light - up bleach white above all else.
It took me all night on the 9th, the morning of the tenth and into the afternoon to arrive at my "Final Destination".
Things did not go well when I drove up unexpectedly to my exes brothers' little house that evening. She was violently angry at ME, and her brother, well, when the fake workmans comp idiot dropped his crutches and came at me, me and "the sweet little habib" (the Honda's former owners nickname for her) drove outta there. (No dvd)
After a short stay at the police station vying for action (to no avail), I headed to bigger, and more central turf, Nashville downtown.
It all began at the Seven Eleven near the section of ramps to highways that twist you around so twisted up that I thought of it as the on ramp "Bible Belt". I was buying a pack of Marlboro lights, a coffee, and a carrot cake when I heard it, the hail. There had been swirling masses of downbursts as I ran in through the wind and rain, coming in chaos.
I will never forget that rain. It was the oddest thing I had ever experienced. It would do everything imaginable, all at once changing speed, size, temperature... and then there was the hail. Everything from golf ball sized to near baseball sized hail falling and thudding, "clancking" on cars, windows and doors all over.
As I ran from the relatively safe confines of the Seven - Eleven, I saw my first blue ribbon dinner winner. There it was, a hundred foot high funnel of black and grey spinning cloud mass, a tornado coming down the street right next to me. As I dove into the driver's seat, eyes glued to the prize, the twisting mass of fury slammed steadfast into the high rise across and disintegrated.
I wish I could say for sure if there was damage, but I had to start the car, and get on the road. But to where? As I twisted around the ramps, I saw my opportunity as the day was fading past dusk and grey down bursts danced with sheeting precipitation. Old Nasville Highway, a long fairly straight stretch of land awaited our storm running pass.
As I drove onto the road, the storm grew so thick I could hardly see. Thick black cloud cover threw rain that was like driving in a car wash, the wipers could hardly handle it!
I would say I saw maybe a total of fifteen tornado's for sure that night.
At one point, I saw one coming at my drivers side at a 45 degree angle, and steered straight into to it (all I could think of) and it worked! It threw the car into the right lane two lanes across and let us pass! No small feat doing 70mph!
There was a defining moment in the chase. It was the moment I saw the two Highway Patrol men standing in a field next to me as I slowed, and passed.
They were staring straight up across to the open field and forest lands out my driver's side window. As I looked at them, I remember thinking how transfixed and scared, and very pale their rigid faces looked. I turned to look out the window, and there the devils dance began.
Five tornado's, clear as if in day with a thousand foot ceiling above their twisting, spiny finger like entrails danced towards and around each other like spirits in a seance. They ran around, bumping like bumper cars, and the black mass of cloud above shifted and did the act of pulling them together all at once. Their bodies morphed and grew, not just equal in size, but as I watched the one orphan cone flee away from them at what seemed a hundred mph, they became exponential.
That is to say that soon, it became too clear that the new, bigger tornado was almost on top of me.
Everything outside of the car was black. The windshield washed with spinning debris and hail and rain, and I put it in neutral and let her drift down to 5mph. It was then that I said the oddest of prayers. I said, aloud, "God, I am gonna die right now, and noone is ever going to know how COOL THIS LOOKED!"
I watched in awe as the speedometer went, in neutral, climbing from 5mph to 55mph in a matter of five seconds. Something like a bumper bump of airplane turbulence, and with a "Shhwoooshhh!" everything was clear.
That was the last tornado I saw that night, or since. The news in the morning said it was the largest night of tornado's in U.S. history to date, spread across Tennessee and Michigan.
Ozenoz began that day as the place I will call my world of minuscule to many more major miracles that came into focus. I began to let go, but am still learning to " let go of letting go" in so many ways.
Thank you for your help.
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