| Author | Message | ||
     Crusty |
The Hurricane In 1991, I was working at a Gas Station/Garage as a mechanic. I had gotten hurt on my previous Tunnel job and decided that I should try something else for a living. Turning wrenches didn’t pay nearly as well as Mining, but 500 pound rocks weren’t falling on me, either. It was a three man operation; there was Steve, the boss and Cheech and myself. Cheech had gotten his name because when he grew a mustache, he looked Mexican. Or so I was told. He was clean shaven when I worked with him and didn’t look Mexican at all. We all got along pretty well, and lots of cars got new exhausts, alternators, tune ups, etc. Now at the time, I was sort of single. My wife had decided that I was too much of an inconsiderate jackass to live with, and she took my year and a half old daughter and left. The reason I say sort of is because neither of us had filed for divorce or legal separation. Anyhow, when she left, she took the car. I had my motorcycle (a 1988 Harley FLHS) to get around on, so I bid her Adieux and got on with my life. In August, the weather Forecasters were all getting excited and they started displaying quite a bit of panic. Hurricane Bob was coming! Everyone should board up their windows, clear all the bread and milk stocks from the supermarkets, climb into a Bomb Shelter and wait for the storm to pass. Oh; don’t forget to fill the car with gas. Business at the pumps was brisk for the couple of days before the Hurricane was supposed to hit. As the storm approached, the time it would start to affect the area was getting more precise. Steve wasn’t worried about the storm, and neither was I. I rode to work as usual that morning. Business was a bit busy in the early morning, but since the storm was supposed to hit us at mid day, things quieted down pretty quickly as most folks heeded the warnings and were hunkered down. By late morning, we started getting some rain and the winds picked up. The rain was coming in waves, but the wind kept increasing. By 1:00, it was really nasty, and all three of us were just standing at the windows watching the storm. The wind was making a lot of noise, and the rain was coming in sideways and it was heavy. Steve said we might as well go home, since there was nothing to do and we weren’t going to get any business. I put my rainsuit on and jumped on my bike. I was a bit concerned by the winds which were now really strong, and decided that instead of taking the highway which was ten lanes wide and wide open, it would be a better idea to take back streets where there were houses and trees to help block the wind. I set off, and within a hundred yards, there was a huge tree branch down that was blocking most of the street. There was some room on the other side of the street, so I could get around it, but that was enough to get my full attention. That wasn’t the only tree that was down, at one point, I had to go up on the sidewalk and ride over somebody’s lawn to get by. It was a tough ride home, and I don’t think I ever got any higher than second gear. The wind was constantly buffeting the bike, and the big ass windshield that was usually a blessing in the rain, was really affected by the wind and made the bike very difficult to steer. I don’t remember how many times I was almost blown over. It usually took me about 15 minutes in traffic to get to work; that day, with no traffic, it took me over an hour to get home, and when I arrived, I was exhausted. We don’t get Hurricanes in Massachusetts very often, but I think that when the next one comes, I’ll be one of those folks who pays attention and gasses up the bike and clears the Supermarket shelves of canned foods. And, if there’s a bomb shelter nearby, I’ll be in it. |
