Month: September 2016

Good Friday Tornado, Saint Louis, Missouri – April 22, 2011

 

 

Cheryl and I walked out of the St. Louis LDS Temple around 6:00 pm (18.00 hrs) on Friday into obvious tornado conditions.  It is always obvious to those of us who grew up in ‘Tornado Alley’.   Hot air pulsing air. High humidity. Shifting winds. Uneasy clouds. A storm front was moving into the eastern part of the State. We quickly left heading west on I-64 toward Wentzville, 25 miles away, straight into the green/gray clouds, and gusty, fitful rain.  The best thing to do in these conditions is to get away from them.

 

At Wentzville, we stopped at QT for fuel.  When I got out of the car the City tornado sirens were wailing and the police cars were out with their sirens on. Bad news. Everyone at the gas station was anxiously scanning the roiling clouds for signs of the funnel.  We turned on the radio to KMOX but, since there was a Cardinals baseball game that night, the announcers could pay no attention to a possible tornado. Cheryl got on weather.com on her laptop and found that a tornado was sighted 8 miles south of Warrenton, and it was heading east at 50 mph.  Maybe 10 minutes away and coming right at us.  Tennis ball sized hail was associated with this storm.  A panicky woman at the next pump island asked me what was going on? She was from Indiana and had no idea. I quickly explained and advised her to finish up and get on her way. Probably a mistake since she was heading east along with the tornado. The clouds suddenly turned emerald green. Really bad news.

 

Cheryl was getting excited and urged me to hurry with the gas. In another two minutes we were heading back to I-70 west, hoping to get through the storm quickly. We no more than got onto I-70 when enormous hail started hitting the car. It was so huge the car, a big SUV, was actually shuttering from the impacts. I thought we might loose the windshield and told Cheryl to close her laptop and put down the sun visor to block flying glass chips.  At the next exit we jumped back off the highway and parked under the gas island canopy at a truck stop, along with every other car and truck that could squeeze in.  Safe from the giant hail, maybe, but this was not getting away from the tornado.  The weather radar now had it right on top of us.  So, the instant the hail dropped in size to 1/2 inch, we headed back to the highway, battling terrific winds and tremendous rainfall.  The few small cars on the highway were barely able make headway, but we pushed on through in the Expedition. Suddenly the sinking sun was shining under the cloud through the downpour, making it almost impossible to see, but incredibly beautiful. The end was in sight, and in three more miles we ran out from under the cloud into sunshine.

 

We looked back. The cloudbank behind us to the east was a roiling maelstrom shot through with lightening.  We did not know until Saturday that this tornado developed into an F4, coming down in the suburb of Bridgeton near I-70 and I-270, completely destroying 40 houses and severely damaging another 60. It then crossed Lambert Field, the Saint Louis international airport, doing considerable damage to the terminals and large jet planes, and closing the airport completely. It lifted after the airport, doing lesser damage to homes in Florissant, including my relatives.

 

Miracle of miracles on this Good Friday before Easter, not a single person was seriously injured.

HARTSBURG AND THE TEMPERED GLASS

 

 

Shortly after World War II, Dad and Uncle Fred started their own business – Obermiller Brothers Amusement Company. They owned and operated coin-operated machines such as juke boxes, pinball machines, pool tables, slot machines and the like. All of us kids, Freddy, Nancy, Jan and I, worked at various times for Dad and Uncle Fred. I loved the business, the shop, the ‘locations’, fixing pin games, running routes, even counting thousands of dollars in coin by hand and wrapping rolls.   From my earliest days of roaming until I entered graduate school I worked for Dad. I had many, many adventures in this connection, from brushes with strong-arm robbers and run-ins with the mob, to fending off hordes of Stevens College girls on Saturday morning while filling candy machines.   This is a short lesson in life story from the tiny town of Hartsburg.

 

The Hartsburg story occurred when I was about 18. Hartsburg is a tiny river town south of Columbia on the Missouri.   The town consisted of a general store, a church, some houses, and, of course, the tavern. Obermiller Brothers had a jukebox and a single pinball machine in the tavern. During the winter or school year I ran a candy machine route at the girls college. In the summer, I went where I was sent to service machines. Generally this was to the little rural towns such as Hartsburg. This summer I had a problem.

 

Saturday night is, of course, the big night in the rural taverns. The tavern at Hartsburg would fill up with farmers, river men, and red necks. As the evening wore on, the tavern patrons would get rambunctious. One particular young man played pinball as he consumed his beer. After some time, he would loose enough dimes that he would loose his temper. For several weeks in a row, he finished his last losing game by slamming his fist down on the pin game glass, breaking it. The tavern owner would call in the problem and I would be sent out to replace the glass.

 

Now, a pinball machine glass cost several dollars and sending me out to replace one every week cost several dollars. It doesn’t take too many dollars to eat up the rather meager profit gleaned from a pinball machine that is only played on Saturday night and then only for a couple of hours until the local yokel breaks it. Uncle Fred ran the pinball’s and we had a discussion.   He decided I should go down to Hartsburg on Saturday and observe the proceedings. As no one in Hartsburg cared or perhaps even knew about the legal drinking age, this was all right by me. The tavern owner and I were well acquainted and as long as I was there on business I could drink all the beer I wanted. (It is amazing how that worked.   I drank beer in numerous taverns all over central Missouri for years before I turned 21, but only when I was at the places alone and on business fixing machines.) I watched the guy play the game. He was really big – like 6’-2” and heavy – like 250 lbs., with a ½” beard and long greasy black hair. He drank six or seven beers while he played. He liked to bang the machine to help the balls move (this doesn’t really help but everyone did it) and frequently tilted ending the game.   After a while he would be too drunk to win and with a last tremendous shake, tilt the game and slam his fist down on the glass, breaking it. Now, it is not easy to break a pinball glass. It takes quite a blow with a fist to do it, but the yokel was big enough and was very proud of his accomplishment.

 

So I reported to Uncle Fred. The next Saturday morning, some new pingame glass was delivered to the shop. Fred unpacked one and leaned it against the wall.   “Come over and kick this,” he ordered.   I demurred, not knowing why he wanted me to smash a new glass. “No, kick it and kick it hard,” he said. OK. I got in position and gave it my best karate kick. The glass bent, rebounded, and almost broke my knee.   This was tempered glass, a new concept to me and quite expensive. Fred told me to load it up, run down to Hartsburg, and put it on the machine…and do it before patrons came into the tavern. Watch what happens and report back.

 

Well, I went down around 5:00 pm and did as directed.   Later the tavern started filling up and my game was being played. Around 8:30, the yokel showed up and promptly commandeered the machine. The scenario played out as usual and by 10:00 he was clearly wearing out. Losing one last game, he picked up the machine a couple of inches, tilting it, and slammed it down. And now it was time for the big moment. Raising his fist over his head, he slammed it down on the glass. Like my foot earlier in the day, his fist rebounded into the air. The glass wasn’t fazed, but the guy let out a howl. He had broken his hand. I left later, taking the expensive tempered glass with me, and feeling enormously satisfied.

MY SECOND HERO STORY

 

OR

 

HOW WE SAVED JAN FROM THE PROPELLER

 

 

Having the opportunity to be a hero is a rare occurrence. Having that opportunity being one to save someone from serious harm or even death almost never happens in real life. Of course, having that someone be your baby sister takes some of the edge off. The year was 1960 and the setting was the Lake of the Ozarks. I was twelve, my brother Fred was sixteen, my sister Nancy was fourteen, and Jan, the baby, was seven.   The family, mostly Dad, was building a cabin at the Lake on the west shore of the Lick Branch arm.

 

Dad had bought the lot (actually two lots put together) in 1958. He was building the cabin between two huge white oak trees; the trees were the reason he had to have two lots. The first thing he had done was to put up a wooden platform for our huge box tent. The first two years at the lake we camped in the tent and cooked out of doors. I loved it. But now the cabin was going up and we stayed in the unfinished shell.

 

The first summer at the lake Dad bought a boat. The boat was a glorified fishing boat that could charitably be called a speedboat. It was 14 feet long with a bridge across the third point and bench seats. The bridge had a steering wheel on the left, like a car, and motor controls. The controls consisted of two levers connected by cables to the motor. The nearside lever was short with a black knob.   It controlled direction. Up was neutral, forward was forward, and back was reverse. The far lever was longer with a red knob. This, the important lever, controlled the throttle. The control box had a safety feature. The direction lever was locked in when the throttle was pushed forward more than one-half inch. This prevented you from inadvertently pulling the drive into neutral with many rpm’s on the engine.

 

The summer before, I had, with careful planning and a bit of incredible good fortune, gotten permission to drive the boat alone. I was now a consummate boat operator. My brother, Fred, because of his superior age and because he was the first borne, could drive the boat whenever and wherever he wanted. Now Fred was very intellectual but had zero mechanical skills. It was a wonder he hadn’t killed himself driving. My sister, Nancy, had less than zero mechanical skills.   At fourteen, she was at the height of girl klutziness. Her only attributable physical skill was that she could ski slalom, something none of the rest of us could do. Nancy, however, wanted to learn how to drive the boat. After all, her older and younger brothers could drive it. By that time, I could not only drive it, I could disassemble the engine with a screwdriver and vise grips. Now, I loved my older sister dearly, but I would never have let her drive the boat, particularly not alone.

 

So the day came.

 

Although I don’t remember for sure, Nancy had undoubtedly been practicing driving with Dad and maybe Fred. I know I had never let her drive when we went out together. I am sure that Dad and Fred had shown her the fine points of steering, how to watch for logs and such, how to cross waves without swamping or flipping over, and maybe how to dock. I am also sure neither showed her the fine points of engine control, things like how the engine started and stopped, or how the throttle and shifter worked in tandem. Fred inherited his mechanical skills from Dad.

 

Nancy, Fred, and Mom were on the dock, a rectangular affair made by joining newsprint pallets together, each pallet having one fifty-gallon barrel underneath for floatation. The boat was tied up on the north side bow to shore. Mom was sunbathing. Fred was giving Nancy last minute instructions on driving alone; instructions like Don’t wreck the boat!!! I was sitting on the picnic table, which was in turn sitting on the old root cellar which was positioned at the edge of the beach about 10 feet from the shore. The old root cellar was a relic from the days when our lots had been part of a farm, now under water. My other sister, Jan, was swimming, well actually bobbing, in the water holding onto the front of the dock. Jan could swim, just not very well.

 

Fred helpfully started the engine for Nancy, something she could never do for herself because it had a pull starter and required a small amount of mechanical skill. I watched with a horrible sinking feeling in my chest. This could be the last time I ever saw my boat. Then he helpfully untied the ropes, and helpfully told her to put it into reverse. Nancy pushed on the throttle instead of the shifter, revving the engine up. Realizing her mistake, she pulled back on the shifter and the engine slammed into reverse, startling Nancy as the boat surged backward. Nancy tried to push the shifter back into neutral but the lockout was engaged. Unless she pulled back on the throttle first she wasn’t going to get to neutral.

 

Fred started yelling at her to kill the engine, but the engine was being uncooperatively loud and besides, no one ever told her how to kill the engine.   You did that by pushing in the kill button located on the front of the engine. So Fred is now yelling Push the kill button on the engine! and gesturing wildly. Nancy swiveled around to look at the engine Fred was pointing at. The boat is now twenty feet out from the dock. As Nancy turns to look at the engine she holds onto the wheel, turning it to the left. Watching in complete disgust, I think “That’s great, the boat is now apparently going to come clear around and hit the shore in reverse, but that’s probably better than running across the cove and killing itself on the opposite shore. I’d have to swim across to start it.”

 

Woops. Wrong. The boat was going to come even further around and crash into the dock. Jan was bobbing up and down in the water watching the spectacle and coming to the realization she is in the direct path of the out of control boat. The boat is now twenty feet from the dock and heading right at Jan. Fred leaves off yelling at Nancy and prepares to do something, anything.   Jan starts bobbing along the dock keeping herself lined up for a direct hit. Mom sits up to watch, and I launched myself from the picnic table to the beach and boat ramp.

 

Things happen very slowly when your adrenalin is pumping. The boat was three feet from the dock and the propeller was two feet from grinding up Jan. If the boat ground up Jan, Mom and Dad would surely get rid of it and we would probably never go to the lake again. Fred threw himself out against the engine with his feet braced against the dock.   Jan was right underneath him. I suppose his adrenalin was pumping too because he actually stopped the boat for just a moment. Just a moment was long enough. I leaped across the dock and bounded over Fred’s head into the boat.   I brushed Nancy aside with a superhuman strength born of fear of losing the boat (and perhaps my little sister), jerked the throttle back, and shoved the shifter into neutral.

 

The action subsided. The boat drifted away from the dock, harmless. Mother plucked Jan from the water in perfect horror of seeing chopped off limbs. Fred sat down dazed. My heart was doing triple time, but everything was ok. Snarling at Nancy, I brought the boat back to the dock.

 

As I think back on it now, I don’t believe Nancy ever drove the outboard again. The next year, Dad bought a twenty-two foot Chris-Craft inboard, a beautiful wooden boat. Eventually, she did drive the inboard alone and with girlfriends, frequently getting stranded by running out of gas which required the assistance of various and sundry admiring boys and young men, but that is another story.

 

THE ADVENTURE OF THE T-14

 

 

 

PREFACE ~ THE LAKE

 

In order to tell this story, I must first provide a little background. Sometime in the 50’s, my Dad started taking the family on trips to the Lake of the Ozarks. I didn’t know it then, but we were looking for a place to build a cabin. Dad was a fisherman, or had been, and I think he had dreams of great times fishing with us boys. In 1958, when I was ten, we found what we (he) wanted. A lot on Lick Branch, a largely undeveloped cove four miles up the Osage arm from Bagnell Dam, with history. It was called the root cellar lot as it had a concrete root cellar right on the beach. A farmhouse had once been located out from shore. The root cellar had been behind it.   The lot had a great pebble beach and huge oak trees. Dad was very partial to oaks. The lot also had a lot of copperheads, no electricity, and no neighbors for a mile.

 

The first year Dad built a wooden platform on which we pitched an eight by twelve box tent. He then built a dock out of newsprint pallets.   Finally, he bought a boat. The boat was an open aluminum fishing boat 14 feet long. It had a bridge just forward of midships with a steering wheel and throttle/gear controls. The motor was a thirty-five horse Johnson outboard, pull start, that would move the boat along at 35 mph. The motor was painted bronze and cream and we painted the boat to match. It was very attractive and every 10-year-old boys dream – of course, I wasn’t allowed to drive it.

 

Getting to drive the boat was an immediate challenge. I love a challenge, and quickly found a solution for this one. I talked Dad (never Mom) into letting me row the boat around the inlet in sight of the lot so that I could fish. After getting the parents accustomed to this move, I started rowing further and further away from the lot. Soon, I was rowing around the point and out of sight of the lot.

 

Fishing requires getting up very early in the morning. At the lake, this was defined as just after the whippoorwills quit singing and just before the sun appeared. On the morning, the lake was very calm with a four-foot mist on the surface. You can hear the clunk of an oar for miles on such mornings. I would row the boat around the point and out of sight. No one got up as early as me; no one would know I had gone.

 

Starting the engine was difficult for a 10 year old, even a tough kid like me. It takes muscle to pull the recoil starter rope hard enough to fire the plugs. I had to figure out how to set the choke and how to pump the primer, but I got it done.   Soon, I was driving the boat down to the end of Lick Branch, some two miles, and would paddle into the Lick Branch Creek. I had a ball. When coming back, I would kill the engine just before the point and row on in to the dock. By the middle of summer I could handle the boat pretty good on the mill pond smooth water of the north end of Lick Branch.

 

Now, I am sure Dad and Mom knew I was starting the boat. After all, it is hard to miss the sound of an outboard starting some 600 feet away in the dead silence of a pre-dawn morning. But weeks went by and nothing was said.

 

THE RESCUE OF THE T-14

 

My brother, Fred, was four years older than me and had as little to do with me as possible. Fred had privilege and was allowed to drive the boat and even pulled my older sister water skiing.   Fred was a boy scout and thought he should be a sea scout. The boy scouts had a sea scout group (unit, pack,? – I was never a scout), and the sea scout group had a sail boat, the T-14. The T-14 was a relatively small single masted sloop that was kept at the Lake. Fred frequently went to the Lake with the sea scouts to sail the T-14.   Sometimes, Fred went to the Lake with the family. When we got to the lot on a Saturday morning, Fred’s first goal was to drive the outboard out to the main channel to look for the sea scouts.

 

One Saturday, Fred decided, or perhaps Mom decided, that I should go along with him to look for the T-14. This was quite an adventure for me. I seldom went out to the channel in the boat. I had never driven the boat in that direction on my early morning excursions and never on choppy water. That day the wind was up, the T-14 was certain to be out, and the channel had whitecaps. Completely fearless in our little boat, off we went.

 

We got to the channel, spotted several sail boats a mile or so to the east, and started out for them. The wind was really up from the west whipping a two-foot chop. Fred ran the boat at half throttle keeping the bow up as high as he could. Spray was cascading over us. It took a while to close on the sailboats, but we were soon able to discern that the sailboat on the south side of the group was the T-14. Things suddenly got exciting.

 

We were 500 feet from the T-14 when a particularly strong gust struck, capsizing the sailboat. Now this was not unusual. The sea scouts frequently capsized the sailboat. It couldn’t sink and you only had to follow the correct procedure to right it. Still closing with our boat, we saw two scouts run out on the keel. Another swam out along the sail, and a forth hung onto the tiller. Bringing the sailboat into the wind, it suddenly righted. Unfortunately, the boy holding the tiller was thrown overboard as the sail came up. Healing over, the T-14 took off like a scared rabbit – no one was on board. The south shore of the channel was 500 feet downwind, and the T-14 was heading for destruction on the rocks.

 

Now, I’m a quick thinker in an emergency, and, although I hate to admit it, so was my brother. Fred yelled, “Let’s get her.” and I yelled, “Go”. Fred throttled up the outboard gaining rapidly on the T-14. I was looking at the shoreline. Fred was cursing. He ran the boat up to 30 feet from the T-14, stood up, and told me to take the wheel. Terrified, I scooted over to the wheel as Fred jumped over the bridge to the bow right in front of me. Now our 14 footer was listing to port so badly that I was afraid we would take water over the side. No – we were taking water over the side. Fred was hanging on for dear life and yelling at me to get closer. What was getting closer was the shore. I yelled that we couldn’t make it. Fred just yelled get closer.

 

The T-14 was downwind from us and healing over so far that the starboard stern was four feet out of the water. I could not approach the boat on the lea side, it would surely capsize on me and sink me. I loved my boat and wouldn’t have that. Besides, there was no time left to think The only thing to do was run right under the stern and hope it didn’t suddenly come down on my bow and sink me that way. And so I did.

 

With a dramatic jump which I missed do to my eminent collision with the shore, now maybe 150 feet away and taking all my attention, Fred got right into the tiller end of the cockpit. He grabbed the sheet and turned the tiller into the wind. The T-14 abruptly hove to. I too turned into the wind. The T-14 was saved. Fred was a hero. I was also a hero, and, just for a moment I could tell Fred thought so, too.

 

Putting the T-14 on a port tack, Fred started back to the scouts swimming along several hundred feet away. I hailed him, asking what I should do. Go on back, he said. He would get the scouts to bring him home later. Clearly, he needed to bask in well deserved glory. I was in glory, too.   I had the boat on the south side of the channel, a good mile and a half from the entrance to Lick Branch, and five miles from home. It would have been more fun if I wasn’t heading into the teeth of the wind and waves with an inch of water sloshing around in the boat.

 

No problem. I bounced across the channel to Lick Branch, abruptly left the wind and waves, and pegged the throttle. I got back much too soon and told a restrained version of the adventure to the family so as not to scare them out of ever letting me go out in the boat again.   Fred got back later telling the story in great detail. Dad was impressed and made a momentous decision. From then on I had free reign with the boat.

 

We built a cabin on the lot over the next few years and Dad bought a Criss-Craft inboard speedboat. I inherited the old outboard, and as time went by, inherited the inboard too. I had many other adventures at the Lake and elsewhere, but nothing quite matches the rescue of the T-14, and the chance to be a real hero.