Pepper Ice Mynt Storm

Y’all heard of freezing rain?  I certainly have.  Spring (and sometimes fall) in Oklahoma sees a lot of folks watching the skies for tornadoes and hail and whatnot.  The winds?  Oh, those’re an all-year-round sort of thing.  But in the winter, the big dread is hearing the forecaster utter the words “freezing rain”.  

“Now i’n’t that just sleet?” you might ask.  

Well, no.  Sleet is when yeh got a snowflake way up in the sky that only partly melts as it falls through a thin layer of warm air before refreezing as it falls through a thick layer of real cold air, hittin’ the ground as a little frozen raindrop that bounces like a lame ping-pong ball upon impact.  

Freezing rain is the gah-dang Devil.  In technical terms, it- (freezing rain, that is, not the Devil, even if they’re one in the same)... it’s, uh, well it’s when you have a snowflake way up high that melts completely as it falls through a warm layer of air.  Maybe they (the snowflakes) melt completely because it’s a thick layer of warm air, I don’t know.  Anyway, there they are, all a-melted and liquidy again, but just before they get to hit the ground, they pass through a thin layer of real cold air.  They don’t freeze to ice, but they get supercooled. Not like, “wow, those drops are super cool!” but more like “dang, them drops are real cold”.  So there they are, these not-yet-frozen-but-super-duper-cold droplets of water, falling to the Earth.  And now comes the real problem.  If everything (you know, like the ground and the cars and the roads and the trees and the motorcycles and the tractors and the hay bales and the fountains and the churches and the houses and the mailboxes... you remember mail boxes, right?  It’s where you used to get’cher mail.  Now you just hit ‘send’.  Anyway, and the porches and the stairs and the wagons and the little raised flower beds made from old tractor tires and the tin sheds and the couches on the curb and the fire hydrants and all that... ) ...and if all of that everything those supercooled droplets are crashing in to are at freezing temperatures, well, those droplets freeze on impact into a giant, frozen splat.  Like throwin’ ketchup at a wall but it freeze-frames just before it can start the slide down.  Anyhoo, even just a thin layer can become real dangerous in a hurry.  

And now comes for the biggest problem (as if having a big ol’ bunch of ice on all of the everything wasn’t already holding a 1st place medal).  Well, it’s not, it’s the dang power lines. Now, I need to tell you that back in Oklahoma, all the power lines are above ground.  Yep, yeah, I know.  And you know what?  I can’t see those big power lines without thinking of the big ice storm of 2002.  Or was it 2001? Oh, hold on a sec - I just checked.  It was 2002. $111 million in damages and 650,000 without power at its peak.  

Anyway, we were without power for a couple of weeks—though some rural folks were out for over a month— so the whole family went to stay at the farm (on account of their gas heating).  It was a fun time, but getting there was a mess what with all the downed power lines and tree branches and ice and such, and I have to say things didn't end well for my tropical fish seeing as how I couldn’t take my aquarium to the farm with us.  I hopelessly wrapped a bunch of towels and blankets around the 20 gallon tank before we left, with the thought that that was maybe better than nothing.  But all it really did was provide an extra barrier between me and the dead fish when I was finally able to come home.  It’s worth noting, though, that the one goldfish I had at the time - Alex was his name- survived.  I paid 12 cents for him at the big box store some years before the storm, where he was being sold as a feeder fish.  Sometime after the ice storm year, my parents installed a lovely pond in the back yard as a birthday gift to me.  Alex the 12 cent feeder fish got to finish his days in that pond, making it to 10 years of age.

Anyway, after I had wrapped my aquarium best I could, we loaded up the big ol’ boxy suburban with a ton of clothes and markers and whatnot.  We weren’t sure how long the power would be out, but we knew we’d have to be ready for an... extended period.  At the time, my best friend, Heather, was living with us to finish 8th grade with me at Garber since her mom had decided to move down to Lawton.  So after loading up the stuff, we fastened the two toddlers in their car seats and the six of us began the treacherously slow crawl to the farm.  This was usually only a 10 minute ride... it took us 2.5 hours.  Power lines were laying everywheres on the highway so we had to take the back way.  Unfortunately, those roads also had some lazy power lines laying around.  We’d crawl along the frozen mud, only to find a downed power line laying across the danged road.  But being in that big boat of a suburban, we couldn’t really turn around so easy on those back roads (on account of the ditches, you know), so we’d have to back up, back up... Until we could swing to the next grid. And then there’s a whole gaw-danged tree across the road, garnished with a curly whisp of a limp power line.  And so we sigh as we back up, back up... Until we can swing the other way down the grid.  We’d hold our breath as we started a new stretch of road.  Would we make it through?  Or is there a line down we can’t see from here? ....Ah, crap.  Another line.  But wait, we got lucky!  There’s a drive to a gate we can turn around at.  It doesn’t help us move any faster, but it sure was less scary going forward instead of backward.  

Toddlers grew impatient as the rest of us were white-knucklin’ it.  Somehow we managed to hold our breath for all that time because the second we managed to turn down the drive up to the house, we gasped with relief.  Finally piling out of the suburban, I don’t think I’d ever felt so relieved to exit a vehicle before.  We marched up the hill towards the 2-story house. Entering, it already felt like a bustling Thanksgiving or Christmas gathering.  Kids were running around everywhere, adults were milling about... some chatting in the kitchen trying to get some coffee put together.  My dad and I naturally followed that magnetic pull to the coffee.  Since the pot was electric, we had to make it on the stove.  My Grandpa John was preparing a linen cloth in a sieve as a substitute filter.  Then, he ground the grounds with a beautiful antique grinder. I can still see his smile as his eyes twinkled up to us with a chuckle mid-grind after someone’s snarky remark reached us with clarity through the chaos.  We laughed at how chunky the grounds were as he poured them into a pot of water.  Ready for boiling, he starts the flame.  My grandpa, dad and I were the three most glued to the coffee activities, with occasional cameos from various uncles of mine.  

The high energy and chaos of a sardinely-packed farm house offered a stark contrast to the serenity of the sunrise.  From an upstairs bedroom window looking out over the trees, first light tinklings in the ice blossomed into full sparkling glory as the sun, unobscured by pesky clouds, was pouring all through the glass-like ice coating of every last twig and branch.  

And in the breaks between a beaten generator’s humming protests, you could crunch out across the frozen grass, the door behind you slowly closing out the crowd’s noise as it shut. Don’t get close to the trees though.  An eerie stillness chilled to the core.  Silence... except for scattered crashes from distant trees, finally breaking under the weight of ice.

Years later I was given some red dishes.  You know, some of those what are kinda clear so to make everything look like you’re in a dark room for black-and-white film.  I think I loved clear red glass so much for that very reason because when I was real little, my Granddad Bobby had his own dark room in the basement.  He did a lot of photography in those days.  Heck, I was so enamored of that red light and how it changed all it touched that I would sometimes brave pushing past the little wooden totem of masks guarding the doorframe to the basement.  They gave me the heebie-geebies.  Or was just a case of the willies?  Uuuh.... Hmmm.. I don’t really know for sure’s, but they absolutely creeped me out.  I’d hover near the door, eyeing their twisted grimaces and pointy horns.  The hairs on my neck would stand straight.  But I’d bolt right past them and flush down the stairs, my heart pumpin’ a race!

Oh but I was talking about those plates... 

So there we were, on the drive home from the farm.  My dad and I were cramped in my little red pickup.  It was tiny, like a toy.  The red plates stacked neatly in a cardboard box, stuffed between me and him.  The box just hung over the edge of the seat.  He drove as I draped an arm over the box, worried the bumpy road would shake them right out the top of it.  He slows at an intersection.  Seeing no dust cloud or vehicles, he pushes on.  CRASH!!  We spin to the side in a rush.  Jay hops out of his less-tiny truck, greeting us with a dazed smile.   “Damn, Jay,” my dad shakes his head, staring at the two trucks.  “Y’all all right?”  Jay eyes us up and down before joining in the truck staring.  While the guys examine the wreck, I check my precious plates.  Not a single chip or crack!  Wooo!  

After calling the sheriff, they called their wives, hoping the women could come grab the guns each of them had stuffed behind seats before the tow truck showed up.  The first vehicle to arrive at the scene was the sheriff.  As he pulled up, my eyes filled with disbelief.  “Sam?? You’re sheriff now?”  He was only a grade ahead of me in school, so I knew him pretty well. Last time I saw him he was in charge of the town ambulance.  I think he was also one of the firemen?  He kinda shrugged.  “Yeah.”  Jay breathed a sigh of relief.  “Well we’re glad it was just you!  The girls’ll be here in a minute to take our guns home for us.”  Sam just laughed. “Well, whatcha got?”  So then the three men stood there, having a mini show-and-tell with the guns while they waited in that intersection with two crunched up pickup trucks and one sheriff car.  

After only about 10 minutes of the guys shootin’ the breeze, my mom showed up.  Then, Jay’s wife.  So now the normally empty intersection sported two crunched up pickup trucks, one sheriff car, one mini van and one non-crunched up truck and a party of 6 Garberites, cool as cream.  I stood there, only half-listening at best, my eyes fixed on my now ex-pickup, a perfect red plate cradled in my arms.  It matched the red camera slung over my shoulder.

Pretty soon came a rustlin’ in the breeze.  It creeped its way through the rugged grass, dry dead stems whippin’ on the long leaves.  “Pssssssst!”  I follow the snaking sound to the foot of a nearby transmission tower.  I saw it covered with the ghost of ice.  A little spooked, I slowly lift my eyes.  Breathing a shiver, the tower sighs a memory.  “Hey, little lady,” he says, “you remember that big ol’ ice storm of ‘02?”  I nod.  “It was awful bad.  Took a lot uh us out.  But I’m still here, and I stand my post.  I remember you dreamin’ of me so long ago... I was flyin’ then.  But that was long before these danged storms.  Now I just sit an’ worry ‘bout the next storm.  But I try to hold onto that dream of yours, what with the flyin’ and all.  Here,” he gestures to my plate.  Naturally, I hold it out to him.  From his broken lines flicker a series of sparks, each one morphing into a perfect mint taffy.  Floating like gentle feathers, they come to rest in a tidy line on my plate.  “There you go.  Now you take those taffies witcheh and no matter how long yeh go, you just think of me when you glance a peppermynt taffy so I don’t lose that dream.  You hear?”  I nod, and he fades to still.  The taffies hidden deep in my pocket, I nervously rejoin the group.  To my amazement, none had noticed the exchange.  

Eleven years later, I pull a few of those taffies from the depths of my pocket.  They sparkle like glass-clad coral in the morning sun, and I breathe a dream.