September 2, 2011
Happy Birthday Kevin

I know you sit and wait in anticipation of my recap of Hurricane Irene, but I am fortunate to have the stylized musings of one of my favorite writers of all time, ladies and gentlemen Conway Twitty.

Hello Darling.............Obscure Family Guy reference there, at 56 years old my favorite television shows are still cartoons. But I digress...........as usual
The FO offered to recap Hurricane Irene and I do enjoy his opinions so here goes
After six years in a Turkish prison I began to embrace alternative lifestyles................no wait, different story for a different time. Here's what Bobby thought about the storm:

I arrived in MHC on Friday afternoon. I left Durham early afternoon because leaving Durham during the daylight hours is usually a pretty smart thing to do and the NWS said that it would be blowing 49 in MHC by 6PM. It was a great trip. No traffic whatsoever. At least on my side of the road. The other side was backed up from Raleigh all the way down. "Odd for a Friday afternoon", I thought. "I wonder what's up? The clouds were beautiful ahead of me. I wish I'd kept my eye on the road instead of the clouds but that's a whole separate story and I don't think there were any witnesses. The winds were minimal. I think Irene was slowing down.

Got to MHC around 5PM. John was still hard at 'Skuttle work' so I unloaded everything and he coincidentally finished up about the same time I finished bringing all my gear in. Go figure.

We caught up and as the weather was still holding pretty good we went to see Dink and then rode over to Atlantic Beach to take a look around. The waves were pounding. (Pic to follow soon). None of the pics are good. Even looking straight at it you couldn't tell where the ocean ended and the sky began. There was no contrast. It was all a fuzzy whitish-gray. Sorta like watching Andy Griffith with a bad antennae fifty years ago or after a night out on the town now.

We rode around a bit. Everything was quiet and boarded up. No sign of life except for a lot of folks like us riding around going, "Hey, there's no sign of life around here!" The weather picked up though and we headed on back and by the time we got back to the house Irene was starting to show her bloomers and I think she had on a pair of Grandma's red lace ones. Even though we had electricity the thought of some cold fried chicken that I had picked up from Smithfield's on the way down (and in more than one example of similar thoughts John had picked up some at Hairy Teaters as well) overtook us and that's what we had for dinner. Wish we'd thought that out a bit better. We would have paid handsomely for a hot meal the next day. Off to bed by eleven as we listened to the storm pick up in intensity. I slept until 3:40. Not sure what woke me up, but I was awake. The wind was howling, the rain pouring and I took a look around the window seals and door jambs to make sure nothing was coming in. I went on back to bed but before climbing in I decided to get dressed. Don't know what made me do it, but I did. The funny part, as we compared notes, is that John and Dink both were awakened within fifteen minutes of the same time and got up, looked around at things and got fully dressed before going back to bed. Weird. I also have a dog that will go and stand by the door three minutes before any family member comes home after being away for weeks or even months, but again, that's another story.

We lost power at 4:25AM Saturday morning. I was up once again checking on things and the power went off while I was in the sun room. My first thought was, "Oh, crap....what did I just do?" Well, whatever I did I caused the power to go out for everyone from Kinston to the coast. You're all welcome.

John and I got up early on Saturday and watched the radar as the storm moved northward. Landfall was just shy of the hook at Lookout and when we were in the eye we ventured out and took a look around as well as looking in on Dink. The city had fared well so far. Water was high in places (another pic here) and plenty of trees down and branches and leaves everywhere but no major flooding of important buildings like the Sanitary and no structural damages that we saw. We probably stayed out about 15 minutes too long as the other side of the hurricane started to kick up. We headed back to the house and settled in. What a great day. Just laying around, watching the storm, reading, eating (cold fried chicken again...I think I'm about done with cold fried chicken), laughing, telling lies, napping, etc, etc. But, it was a long day. We went out again in conditions that were improving but still not good around 5PM to check on Dink. She was missing her phone and her daily talkfest. We took the brunt of that 'missing'. Don't get me wrong. I love Dink. I don't mind being her captive audience. Um, which way do the bullets go in ?

We did manage to watch the race Saturday night. Everyone is into big screen tv's these days. Not us. A 4.3 inch Droid X provided everything we needed except for libations and we found those after digging around in the Riley's backyard. We also found the first wife of the previous owner.

Sunday morning brought sunshine but still no power. Not a big deal. But by then even we began to notice how we smelled now beginning the third day without a shower. When the Rileys lose power they lose everything including water. Any water...hot or cold. We got up and rode around....with the windows open. Lots of trees down but again, that was about it. I don't mean to say that lightly. A lot of folks are going to be doing cleanup for the next few weeks. Dave and Bev called and they were heading down (early on the road) and picked us up some biscuits in Goldsboro, about the last place there was power. I can't tell you how good a cold sausage biscuit can taste.....it wasn't cold fried chicken. Thanks to you two. Really. Hope your new house down there came out OK so I have someplace to stay. John's house has a bit of a funk to it now.

John and I put a few things back together in the yard and on the porch and then I took off and headed home. Got back around two, unloaded again, mowed the grass (my neighbor Wendy whom I adore came by about then so I turned off the mower and although we usually exchange hugs I told her that I was a bit too ripe to do so. She had just come back from Atlanta an hour earlier and said "Hey...I've been on an airplane," and gave me a big hug. I've got a feeling that might be the last hug for a while 'cause I didn't smell any airplane.) Then off to Greensboro to take something to Amanda and back home again.

So, I'm home and safe. At 6:30 I had a cold beer (I was afraid to quit cold turkey after Saturday night....and on a related note may I be among the first to congratulate Ted Kennedy on two years of sobriety) followed by a hot shower. John is still without power at this moment. Glad I went down. Not so much for the adventure although it was fun. More importantly it's just another experience that we'll all be sitting around and at some point someone will go, "Do you remember.....?"

Nope, but if you hum a few bars.............

Funny stuff and finished off with a great old joke. Know it, hell I wrote it! The last time he guested here the blog went viral at Duke and got over a thousand hits, let's do it again.
The water got high Saturday morning as Irene came in:

But at the end of the storm Bobby talked me off of the roof. No, I was up there to put the marine radio antenna up, thankfully it lasted another storm. We had minor tree damage (needed anyway, thanks for the reminder there God) and lost the contents of the refrigerators and the freezer. And what the heck, they needed cleaning out anyway. At the end of the storm it was not raining inside my house, I have nothing to complain about. Lots of people Down East got hammered, and judging by the empty bottles in the trash Monday, so did we.

Anyone else want to guest host just let me know
Happy Labor Day, in town next week and then on the road the rest of September. Oh, happy birthday Kevin, I love you and am very proud of the man you are.