The thought of it, the sight of it, the everliving fright of it does not die from year to year but returns, written in memory with a dark pen that marks black the mind’s funnel that tunnels back to the day and night in early June of 1953. What it meant for you and me was fear, caught from our mother like a dark disease, spreading quickly through limb and vein as we sat on the couch until very late awaiting a second tornado authorities warned of. Over the radio, news of death and destruction. The numbers grew with the passing hours––names of the dead, names of the missing read again and again. Does anyone listening know the whereabouts of So-and-So? So many So-and-So’s unknown before that night formed a terrible litany not forgotten for months afterwards in all our communal prayers.
