THOSE DEADLY STORMS

People are reeling today from deadly tornadoes that rolled across several states in the South last night. More than 50 persons died in Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama. Fellow Mississippians in Oxford and Southaven (just south of Memphis)lost property but were spared loss of human life.

As the storms raged, I was up till the wee hours keeping track. I thought about the day in March 1966 when my parents' neighbors in this part of the county died in a horrific tornado. The Weather Channel recently recapped it in its Worst Storms in History series. One week ago, I saw the father of a (then) 2-year-old who died in that storm, as did the live-in mother-in-law/grandmother. The man recalls that he and his wife drove home from their jobs in the city that afternoon, fearing the worst, judging from the devastation they saw en route to check on their family members. By then, my father and others had discovered the bodies of the little boy and the grandmother, "...wrapped together around a tree," as the story was told.

Thus, I admit to outsized fear of tornadoes. They kill people. What's more, they're often people we know and love. To all who lost friends or family in the February 2008 or any other deadly storms, my thoughts and prayers are with you. I consider all of you My Neighbors.