…swingin’ on the outhouse door. Without ‘er nightie…

Well, not exactly. At least not this time. I got home from Party Part Deux last night and there was an email message from The Commander. Buried way down in about the fourth paragraph after a bunch of stuff about the sunset and the comings and goings of various beach people was this little tidbit:

Did I tell you about the near tornado on Sunday morning about 4:30 AM when I got locked outside in my nightgown – with TORRENTS of rain?

Say what? Uh, noooooo, you did not tell me that!! She has promised to write the whole thing down in her own words for me but she has about a brazillion things to do today, so we may have to wait a bit. In the meantime, I’ll try to recount that little adventure from what she said on the phone this morning.

Apparently it was pretty hot up there on the Shores of Gitchee Gumee Saturday and the wind came up during the night and then she woke up at around 4 AM to a sound very similar to that of a train going by. Uh, “near tornado?” Okay.

She didn’t want her computer to get wet, so she got up to close windows and put the glass windows back in the doors (don’t ask, you probably do not want to know, suffice it to say that Karen and I are the fastest window-changers in the great lakes region ;-)). She looked out the back door and saw that her hanging fuschia plant was swinging around wildly, so she went out on the deck to rescue it and… Locked herself out!!! In her nightgown.

After standing there hanging on to the door for fifteen minutes or so, she finally managed to use the grill bellows to poke a hole in the screen and get the door unlocked. She tells this story better than I do, i.e., “I couldn’t go over to Suzie and Sandy’s because I would’ve gotten soaking wet.” Roight.

Folks, I think I can count on less than one hand the number of times there has been a tornado warning in Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula. Wind? Just ask the guys on the Edmund Fitzgerald. But nor’westers do not spawn tornadoes. Blizzards? Twelve inches of snow doesn’t even begin to shut down the rugged outpost of Sault Ste. Siberia. Tornadoes? Well, we think a tornado might have been what made the hole that was in front of the Old Cabin when I was a kid. I think that happened in about 1950 or so? And a few years ago, there were warnings up in Whitefish Bay that never came to anything. Just not the usual weather pattern around there. Kansas? Not.

And outhouses? Well, once upon a time, we all had one. The Piedmont-McNaughton old cabin even had a 3-holer. Nowadays, everyone has indoor plumbing. Bugs and Horsey still have a working outhouse (2-holer), and Dennis, and I can’t remember if Pat’s is still standing or not. Emergency use only. And the one we used to have did not have a door (don’t ask ;-)) so swinging on it was obviously impossible, nightie or not.

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