We have had that storm here the last few days. Well tonight our sirens went off for a tornado. After last year's tornado killing eight high school students and taking up a good part of town, they don't mess around much anymore.

The siren blasts so I go to turn on the radio and look on the computer so I know what is going on. I grab my digital camera and go outside to see if I can catch anything. My neighbor, Alvin, aged 69, jumps in his truck, speeds off like a madman. I am thinking, "Gee, he must know something I don't know..." I told my husband, and his idea was maybe his daughter lives near where the tornado is or something. About 15 min later he comes back and I see his cat, Fred, riding on the dash. He said that Fred howls every night to go for a ride and it just happened to coincide with the sirens tonight.

This was the man who swore he would not take him in. But five years ago I worked on him really hard... and one day he did. Someone had shot Fred with a BB gun so Alvin said "No more" and took him in. He then built a 12 foot high enclosure (a fortress) in his back yard so Fred could "go out - since he was an outside type of guy."

Now is that a sweet man or what? Anyway I just had to share with someone who would appreciate a man driving off in a tornado to take his cat for a spin.

This is how Alvin takes Fred out to the truck.

Buddies in a truck.
This is the two of them side by side in the truck.

Alvin said that Fred was an outside kind of guy...
So he had three men out build a fence so that Fred could go out in the mornings to take a walk.

Copyright © Tracy Jordan
August 26, 2008