Zooming with the Aces, #27, April 18, 2024

Zoomers, April 18, 2024

 Row 1, Left to Right: Tom Tatlock, Fred Elder, Glenna Stearman Park; Row 2, left to right: Dan Tontz, Mary Lancaster Curtis, Marilyn Tompkins Bellert: Row 3, left to right: David Robinson, Diane Rusch Zinn, Lee Ayres; Row 4: Skip Granger

Following some initial chit-chat, Fred began the meeting, the topic for the day being storm experiences.

Tom Tatlock, Appleton WI,  I remember a weather story from my freshman year in college at KU.  The turnpike was closed due to ice and snow, so I had to take the train from Wichita station to Lawrence.  The train was chugging out of Wichita when it was hit by a car at 13^th or 21^st street. We sat there on the tracks for a long, long time. The ancient train car in which we were traveling was maybe from the Civil War era and was very cold. It stayed cold all the way to Lawrence.

Glenna Stearman Park, Montgomery Park, MD  The main weather event I remember was when Joel was working for NORAD headquarters near Colorado Springs. Every third night he was inside the mountain all night long. The winds that come down from the eastern slope of the Rockies can be very hazardous. On this night, the winds were over 100 mph and they blew out everybody’s car windows. They were all deep in the mountain and had no clue what was going on outside. That’s the biggest wind I’ve ever been in. I think it’s called the Chinook wind and it comes down from Wyoming or Montana.  We didn’t lose anything. We had a little Austin-Healy and no windows were broken.

Dan Tontz, Dallas TX.  On May 25, 1955, a tornado struck Udall, Kansas, about 10:30 at night. News reports said there was almost complete destruction. Only one habitable structure survived. This tornado’s path extended for 50 miles, traveling from the southwest to the northeast. It missed Wichita. Ten days afterwards, the death toll was 73 out of 610, but 83 people were still missing. It was the worst ever tornado for a town that size.

Where was Dan? This was a Friday night, and I was 12 years old, seeing a movie at the Tower Theater, then at the corner of Oliver and Central. Boys and girls were pairing up on Friday nights at the movies. As I remember, the young ladies wore their fathers’ white shirts with long tails. There was a lot of interaction going on in that theater.  I had recently graduated to Friday nights from Saturday morning serials and cartoons. This was the Big Time for co-education. My dad and other parents came to the theater to pick us up, which meant total embarrassment for a 12-year old. From the look on his face, I knew something had happened.

Our next door neighbor was a ham radio operator. The ham operators provided the major way we had of keeping in touch with people, especially in disasters. The telephone operator in Udall died at her station during the tornado. Our neighbor loaded up his stuff and headed to Udall to help with communications. A few days later, my dad and I went to Udall. He was responsible for helping to assess property damages. My most memorable moment was looking at a telephone pole, 10 feet up, at a tiny piece of straw was sticking out of the pole, perpendicular.

A few years later, when I was a senior with a dance band, we played a dance at the new Udall High School. The kids were still talking about the tornado.

Mary (“Mert”) Lancaster Curtis, Stafford County, KS  I have a good story.  Yesterday, there was no wind. The St. John high school and middle school have a service day with a  sign up to help anyone around town who calls the schools and signs up for help. They’ve done this for about seven years.  I called to request four persons. Four boys came at 9 AM. They could actually work and follow instructions! One was a senior. Some years we’ve had students who didn’t even know how to rake. They were absolutely amazing and it’s wonderful what you can get done in 2 1/2 hours when you’ve got all that young energy. The main goal was to get all the sticks picked up so I could mow. They couldn’t believe they spent the whole morning picking up sticks and debris and taking it all to the burn pile.  Of course today the wind is blowing again, but I did get to mow for a couple of hours. So that’s a weather story because if we had the wind when they were here like it was the day before and today, it would have been horrible to be outside for 2 1/2 hours. Anyone who comes my direction for this project has to expect to do a lot of work. There’s nothing hard about picking up sticks, but you have to lean over a lot, and for someone who is 82, that can be quite a challenge these days.

Marilyn Tompkins Bellert, Sycamore IL  I also have strong memories of the Udall tornado. Several weeks after the tornado, we drove through Udall on the way to summer camp. The destruction was horrifying. Nothing was left but rubble. I clearly remember seeing a Chevy truck wrapped around a tree, with the grill at the top, chassis in the middle, and back bumper circling around the base of the tree, which had been stripped of leaves and most branches by the storm. My brother Dave and I spent many nights in the basement when tornado sirens were blaring. We had a bed in the basement, pushed up against a wall under a window. One night, Dave insisted on sleeping in my place, which was next to the wall. After a protracted battle (Why did I bother?), I let him have the spot. During the night, the wind howled and rain poured for hours. The window well above us filled up and forced the window open. Cold water cascaded down the wall and soaked my poor little brother. Chuckling, I managed to leap out of the way and stayed dry.

My grandkids had a good time here when the tornado sirens went off. We hustled them into a small storeroom under the stairs. They learned the drill and could quickly gather Goldfish crackers, M&Ms, soda, games, cards and flashlights to entertain themselves until the All Clear. They loved tornado times. Fortunately, there has been no damage around here. Yet.

David Robinson, Wichita KS  Because of Dan’s story, I am switching from a California snow story to a Tower Theater story.  This is a family storm story.  I was about 11 and my oldest sister was about 9. We went to movies a lot as a family and the Tower was our go-to theater. We did kiddie shows, but others too, and were very serious about it. One time, my parents said we were to take my sister Nancy, who was 5.  We didn’t want to take her, but had no choice. My parents dropped us off and checked the time the movie would be over. We went to the concession stand, got our seats, and were to stay there until the movie was over – no funny business! But five-year old Nancy had to go potty. We sent her on her way, not thinking anything about it. She knew not to talk to strangers. She didn’t come back, and she didn’t come back, so I told Diane, my oldest sister, to find out what was going on. She did, was gone for awhile, and finally came back, pissed. I waited until after the movie to learn what happened. Before we went to the movie, Nancy wasn’t ready. She threw on a dress, because that’s what little girls wore in those days. Her underwear was in bad shape and she had pulled the elastic from the waist band over her shoulder. Then she put on the dress. When she went to the bathroom at the theater, her clothes were all mixed up and she couldn’t move. Diane had to undress her, then dress her again.

Diane Rusch Zinn, Lawrence, KS  I remember a rain experience in 1973 in Jasper, Canada. We had signed up for horseback ride to Amethyst Lake on the Continental Divide. Getting there, we rode through a torrential rain for 4-6 hours on horseback. It was miserable.

We only skied at Vail one time, but we had quite an experience there. We were up on the mountain and coming down for lunch, when the snow turned into a whiteout. We had never been on this mountain, and I was terrified. We made it down somehow. There was a treat – Ethel Kennedy was in lodge where we were having lunch.

We had a lot of tornado experience. Three years ago, a tornado missed our house by a half mile on three sides. In 1966, Dick’s law review class was studying at Washburn in Topeka for the bar exam. The tornado was coming right at them and they were in a basement room. Theirs was one of the only buildings on campus where the roof didn’t topple into the basement. It was a miracle for those guys, who were hiding under a huge lecture desk.  We lost our car with new tires, a graduation present for Dick from my dad. The guys hitchhiked back to Lawrence amid the tornado sirens. The oddest experience in that tornado was that it opened Dick’s briefcase, splashed his notes inside with mud, and then closed it up again without a single note page being lost. Later that night at home in Lawrence, the sirens went off again, we took our two young children out of bed and took cover in the basement.

Lee Ayres, Fresno, CA.  That was the tornado I was going to talk about. I remember the tornado in Topeka because it cleared a strip through southwest Topeka. In respect to tornado, I don’t know if any of you recall the Indian lore about Wichita that a tornado would never strike there because of the confluence of two rivers. That was obviously disproved the summer of 1966 because one hit and it did sound like a train coming through. What was particularly memorable was to learn the next day that one of the pilots from McConnell Air Force Base was traveling on 21st Street and the tornado lifted up his car off the ground. I don’t recall how far it carried him, but there was a lot of conversation and joking about that.

I was sharing a house on North Stafford with two guys I hadn’t really known before. One of them had served as a page for the newspaper and he worked on the morning paper, so his day began at midnight. That was in the days they actually printed newspapers. That’s also when his parties started; sometimes at our house, sometimes elsewhere. When he heard about the Indian legend, he had great fun with it. He was from Minnesota and had weather stories that topped ours.

Dan wanted to know why tornados so often occur after dark.  Lee thought temperature change might generate activity, but he also saw them on the Kansas Turnpike during the day. Dan remembered seeing them with Archie Adams  while playing golf. Tom inserted that the Topeka tornado was June 8, 1966.

Skip Granger, Sun Lake AZ.  I’m just happy to live in Arizona where we don’t have tornadoes. l’m also happy to be away from earthquakes. Today is the anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires. I also remembers the Topeka tornado, since  students a year ahead of me were studying for the law boards. Roofs torn off buildings. I can’t remember how it affected my apartment.

I went to Joplin after a big tornado there.  When I spotted a big heavy safe sitting in the middle of rubble, I asked, “What is that?”  The answer: “that’s all that is left of the bank.”

I have had two unique experiences in the last couple of days. One – I was asked to be in Marquis’ Who’s Who. I am resisting. Two days ago, I received a summons to serve on a jury. Mary Ann thought that after age 75, we were exempt from jury service. I will call and straighten it out.

Fred Elder, Madison WI.   My first memory of a tornado was in Lawrence in the mid-60’s, watching three tornadoes coming toward Lawrence. I watched their path and they decided to skip Lawrence that day. It was quite an experience. It was when I was an undergraduate, so probably 1963. Like some of you, I was at Udall the morning after and the thing I came away with was that you couldn’t tell where any streets had been.  Maybe the locals could. A good friend at KU who was from Udall was filled with stories. My most recent “shocking” weather experience was moving to Wisconsin from Kansas. Let me tell you, the weather is hell up here. When I moved, it was cold and snowing, and quite an introduction to the north land. We get unbelievable amounts of snow up here.

Back and Forth

Lee asked for an update on Glenna’s sister, which led to a discussion of stroke symptoms and treatment.

Glenna said that until recently, she had only a vague idea about the small strokes, TIAs, or transient ischemic attacks. Her first encounter was several years ago when she was staying with family in Rhode Island, and John Van Slyke, a Rhode Island resident, had one. After Glenna described the symptoms to her son JT, a hospitalist also in Rhode Island, he told John to go straight to the hospital. So, when Glenna heard her 90-year old sister’s symptoms, she knew it was a TIA. An artist in Boston, sister Suzanne had five incidents over two days. At various times, they left her unable to speak and without coherent vision, since her eyes zig-zagged, both among the five stroke symptoms. Her sister is still having symptoms, despite being otherwise in good shape. At least 2/3 of people who have TIAs survive.

Glenna is thinking about writing an article about stroke symptoms and how to survive a stroke, similar to the Parkinson’s article she wrote several years ago for the website. In the past week, she has talked with Debbie Snyder, who continues to have serious Parkinson’s issues and Judy Moon Zyskowski, whose husband has PD. She also talks with Rich Hayse about Parkinson’s. She reminded us that we have classmates for whom life is really difficult. For more about our classmates and Parkinson’s, see “A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On“

Tom shared a grandparent story. His 15 year-old grandson in Tokyo called with exciting news: “I’m going to Dallas because I’m on an international robotics team. We are competing in Dallas!” The grandson called when his parents were asleep, which Tom found amusing.

Diane mentioned that her grandson has also participated in an international robotics competition. She was able to watched the competition online.

Fred closed out the session by wishing everyone a beautiful spring and hoping that no one raised grave health issues the next time.

The next time: Thursday, May 16, at 2 p.m. Wichita time.