Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

I've lived my entire life in Tornado Alley, except for four months, 20 years ago, in Washington, D.C. Tornados are just part of life. I've never seen one, although I've see many tornado fetuses, cloud rotation, wall clouds and the like.

But this photo -- by The Associated Press, which retains all rights thereto -- has managed to focus my attention on the destruction in a way that nothing else has lately. Not the emptiness left behind in Moore, Okla., after May 3, 1999, not the grainy photos and video from Wichita Falls, Texas, on April 10, 1979, not the now-ubiquitous tornado videos on the Weather Channel.

It's the grain elevator that gets me, standing as a silent sentinel to the community of Greensburg, Kan. The town was all but wiped out. It wasn't the first, and it won;'t be the last, but this one hits me in the imagination.

With a population of about 1,500, Greensburg was about the size of my hometown in eastern Oklahoma when I left it back in the day. And the spare layout of Greensburg reminds me of the little towns I fell in love with on the northwest Texas plains when I lived there.

It's not much bigger than the kind of town I know my good friend Ronholio comes from in southwest Oklahoma: He said once that it was so small you could climb the water town and pee from one city limits to the other.

Sweetwater, Okla., maybe the size of Greensburg but probably not, got whacked last night. Took out the high school and some houses. Tiny Sharon, Okla., population 120 or so, got whacked a little, too.

Those of us who live in these parts eventually make a kind of peace with tornados. We have to, or we couldn't live here. Unlike a hurricane, you don't know for sure where, or when, they'll hit.

Still, even with all the technology, the finger of God can dip down from the sky before you notice it was getting cloudy -- unless you're "weather wise" as we say, but even sometimes when you're paying attention they can sneak up on you. I've always thought it was like living in a neighborhood where there's a sniper.

Dr. ER lived through an F-4 tornado, in 1979, and her house was damaged, but I've been fortunate. Damage from straight-line winds is commonplace here, but except for losing the end of a big hay barn at home when I was little, I've never personally dealt with tornado damage (he said, knocking on wood).

Mama ER was kind enough to tell me back then, when I was ascairt, that it wasn't a tornado that took out the end of the hay barn; it was just the wind off the tail of the tornado as it skipped over the place.

I was in my 20s before I realized that the wind off the tail of a tornado IS THE TAIL OF THE TORNADO. What a kidder Mama ER was. What a sweetie, actually, telling me the truth, but in a way to keep me from gettin' ascairter.

Not ascairt today. More worried about Bird and YankeeBeau bein' on a Big Scary Boat for the next week, in the Gulf of Mexico! Just very, very aware of the weather. Resigned, as much as is possible, to the possibility of loss of life and property. Specifically, what I'm thinking about is how to protect the critters and this office and all my books, if it gets bad. I've got some candles out, and a flashlight. Ice-T will just have to deal with it, if I need to bring Riker and Bailey inside.

Dr. ER said to close the office door. The day "her" tornado hit, she had closed the door to her bedroom, which, she says, must have been why when the storm was over, the outside wall to her bedroom was gone, but her Easter dress was still lying there on her bed, unruffled, where she'd left it.

--ER