Part 2.
To make a long boring story a short boring story, I made an offer on the house. i didn’t low ball them, but offered less than asking price. They wouldn’t budge on price; the only concession was they would cover closing costs. We shook hands and agreed on it. Assuming the inspection and appraisal came back ok, I had just bought a house. The appraisal came back slightly above the asking price, and the inspection was clean. About a month later I was sitting in an office with a broker, agent, and notary signing a mountain of paperwork. I had keys to my own home. It took me about two weeks longer to get moved in. I did it by myself, in the evenings and on the weekends. It was about a 3 hour round trip from my apartment to my house, so even having borrowed a small enclosed trailer from a friend it still took me more trips and more time than I wanted. But I finally finished. I cleaned up my old apartment and handed them the keys. I did get my security deposit back, which I immediately spent on the way home on a new large flat screen TV. And I was broke. My bank account had shrunk from around $40k to just a few thousand with the stroke of a pen. But I was now a homeowner.
Once I got settled in, I went and introduced myself to my new neighbors. I already knew, or knew of at least, one of my “backdoor” neighbors, they were one of my best friends inlaws. My other “backdoor” neighbor was an older middle-aged couple. Their kids were both grown and lived away, but they visited often so they said don’t be alarmed if you see some unusual vehicles in the cul de sac from time to time. They were nice; I liked them and they seemed to like me. Over the next couple of year’s I would find out he had a source for some fine moonshine. And after his dog got bitten by a snake, he went on a crusade against them; if I heard a .22 shot from out back it was just one more dead snake, nothing to worry about.
My neighbor across the street was a retired professor and his wife. In his retirement, he had started making pottery, and sold a good bit of it. Unfortunately both of our mailboxes are directly across the street from his driveway, and some of his customers aren’t good at backing up. The good news is I have gotten really good at putting up new mailboxes. I have a spare post and mailbox in the garage now.
My “side” neighbor, the owner of the McMansion, didn’t live there anymore. He had a lake mansion about an hour away and he kept the house beside me, I think, just so he could send his grown kids there when they wanted to have a weekend pool party and not bother him. I had met him at a banquet before I had even realized we would one day be neighbors. He owned a string of fast food restaurants and had done very well financially. Well enough that he owned the largest house in the neighborhood and kept it just so he could get his kids out of his hair some weekends.
My other neighbor was a lawyer in town when I moved in. A few years later he was elected judge. He was nice enough, but we weren’t buddies. I had only been to his house once, when I went to introduce myself. We would say hello to each other in passing from time to time. But he did have a basement and a storm cellar. And that is where this story really starts.
Several years after I had been in my home, there was forecasted to be a massive line of destructive storms moving through the next day. The torcon index was incredibly high, starting early in the week at a 7. By the morning of the storms they had elevated it to a 10/10. It was the first time in history that the weather channel had ever done that; and still now years later they have only done it one other time. It was not a question of whether there would be tornadoes. And unfortunately they would turn out to be right. It was a question of where and how destructive they would be, not if they were coming.
The morning of the storms, I woke up to thunder and lightning at daylight. But it was fast moving and was gone by the time I had gotten dressed and ready. This was just the first line though, the bad stuff was supposed to be arriving in the afternoon. I had an appointment at an account about an hour away, so I jumped in my truck and headed that way. As I pulled into town, I had already noticed several interstate signs down, and after I made it into downtown I noticed treelimbs and powerlines down. The thunderstorm that had gone over me had turned into a small brief F1 tornado. I pulled up to my account and briefly met with the owner. The power was out, we would have to do this another day. I had one more appointment later in the day, about another hour down the road. As I got into my truck a voice in the back of my head was screaming “don’t go, go home!”. Normally I would ignore such a voice, work won’t do itself. But this voice was loud and insistent. So I picked up my phone and called the account and asked if they minded, on account of the weather, if we rescheduled. They said that would be fine, they were watching the weather too and were considering sending their employees home. So I got in my truck and headed home. I stopped on the way home and picked up some steaks and a case of beer. If I was going to blow away I might as well blow away happy. As soon as I got home I turned on the TV and found the local channel with the best weatherman. They were showing the doppler radar of a large powerful storm approaching the town I had just cancelled my appointment at. If I hadn’t listened to the voice in my head, I would have arrived just before the storm got there. As it got even closer, they switched to a tower cam that showed the big, black angry cone approaching from the SW. It was terrifying to watch it get closer and closer, and then it went black as the storm knocked it out. My mouth was hanging wide open. It was only noon. This was going to be a long day. And night.
