Goodnight Irene ... Oh, Donna ... Hurricanoes

With Hurricane Irene traveling up the East coast this past weekend, I was reminded of another hurricane from September of 1960.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Donna

The elementary school was only two blocks from my house, and one morning, the worst morning of the hurricane, it was extremely dark outside and high-velocity, slant-wise rain repeatedly strafed the school windows. Our third-grade teacher was trying to put an educational spin on the impending disaster, telling us students about the "eye" of the hurricane where everything was suddenly "calm." That seemed troubling somehow. You would think the hurricane would get worse the deeper you penetrated inside it. I guess the whole trick was getting to the center, and then you would be OK.

We were dismissed from school by mid-morning and all the kids had to be picked up by their parents, even kids like me who lived two blocks away from school. I recall a stream of water overflowing the curb and washing the sidewalk, A day or two later after Donna had finally ended, I walked through the local park with other kids looking at all the uprooted trees. There were many willow trees that had fallen because willows have fairly shallow roots. I was thankful my father had removed the willow tree in our yard the previous summer because that tree would have certainly come crashing down our house.

But the most exciting thing about Hurricane Donna for an 8-year-old was the loss of electric power. My parents lit several kerosene lamps throughout the house (I wonder how many people have kerosene lamps in their homes anymore, because kerosene is highly flammable for one thing). My family ate dinner by kerosene lamp or candlelight and I went to bed early, snug under the covers with a flashlight for reading comic books. Naturally I welcomed the loss of power as an adventure, as fun, especially in the dark, while my parents and other relatives and neighbors seemed put out and bothered and inconvenienced. Now, a mere half century later, in the "Silicon Age" with our utter dependency on all things digital, the loss of electricity seems more cataclysmic than ever.

And now for a little bathos. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb9KMnzzAII

Thank you, You Tube . . . Forget Olivier, Jones and McKellan etal . . . I decided to skip them because it would be difficult to compare their stellar interpretations. I love this guy, whoever he is---more of a beer-budget Lear, a working man's Lear, than the vaulted Dom Perignon or Chateau Rothschild performances of The Masters.  It's more like "The Duke and Dauphin" characters from Huck Finn.  And I always liked the Spanish or Italian lilt of "hurricanoes" better than our current, more tin-eared "hurricanes." We continue to say "tomato" and "tomatoes," not "tomates." I say we petition linguists and usage experts everywhere to restore "hurricanoes" to its once lofty place.  But not pronounced Hurri-"canoes" as in those lightweight (but not as light as kayak) vessels we paddle. Hurry, the waters are rising, man the canoes! "Oh, Fool, I shall go mad!"