The tempest

At about 5:00, great black storm clouds built on the eastern horizon. Soon, wind began to pick up, and word went around that a lightening storm was coming, and to stay away from the metal poles holding up the tent. Tina and I manned the ice trays, our backs to the storm clouds. All at once, a great gust came through, and everything went flying from the buffet tables and the kitchen behind us. My hat flew off my head, quickly followed by bags of cups, followed by bowls of potato chips. The gusts gained strength, and soon chairs began to tip. The IVAW took down their pup tents, and then the canopies over the shuttle stop and portrait gallery. The medical staff began battening down the hatches- supplies and cots trying to escape, and the awning threatening to carry the whole operation over to W’s house.

Tina and I started stuffing buffet supplies under tables and weighting them down as best we could. I worried that we had left our tent wide open back at Camp I, and that all of our bedding and clothes would be drenched by the time I could get back.

I noticed that the “Free Speech Tent” sheltering Code Pink and the Peace House and other groups, was having difficulty securing, ran over there. We started trying to shove boxes of papers and t-shirts under tables, but soon realized the tables wanted to fly and we had to drop them. Two or three of us were at each corner of the awning, pulling hard on canvas straps, trying not to touch metal, while 5 or 6 people under the canopy tried to drop the poles. I began to wonder if our tent would even be there when we got back: we had staked it as best we could, but it wasn’t really secure.

Saif, who I believe I mentioned before, is crazy, ran around laughing and snapping pictures. Honestly, he provided welcome comic relief, and did drop the camera once or twice when I shouted at him to grab a strap or a pole.

When we thought we had done what we could outside, we went back under the big tent to await the rain. Tina kept saying a storm was no big deal, but I have experienced Texas thunderstorms before, and I do not like it when it rains baseballs and the wind howls and the thunder is so loud you think it must be crushing something big and physical, like the Astrodome.

Inside the big tent, the huge glass lamps swayed threateningly in the wind. We decided we’d rather be outside than under the lamps, and no one trusted the tent to be able to withstand the wind forever. If it came down, it could kill people. Electricity was cut, the lights and PA went out.

So we stood out on the road and watched the lightening approach, photographed cows in the neighboring pasture who didn’t seem to care.

And the wind died.

Suddenly, it was just nice out. The clouds seemed to be heading on a route skirting Crawford entirely. People went back into the tent, the lights came back on. Shuttles started up. I believe movies were played, but I don’t remember for sure. Folks who weren’t staying at camp, like my new friend Eric from north of Fresno, got their things together and started to leave.

Tina and I shuttled back to Camp I, and I went to our tent to see if it had blown away. It was there, and what’s more, someone had come through and closed it up for us. Turned out to have been Elle, who apologized for going into our tent when we weren’t home. I assured her I was only grateful.

I made my bed and was sound asleep by 10:30. Tina tells me that people came by to visit and try to get us to come out and play, but I never woke up. Sleeping in my ditch, with a blanket and a sheet and no padding, with the threat of fire ant invasion constant, I slept so soundly while I was at Camp Casey, you’d think I was at the Hilton with an Ambien.

At about 3:00 AM, security walked down the road calling, “There’s a lightening storm, you’d be safer in your car. There’s a lightening storm, you should leave your tent.”
Tina and I grabbed our blankets and got into the car, reclined the seats and were out again. The storm came, loud crashing thunder and lightening and raining baseballs, and we slept through it in the front seat of the Saturn.