Tornado Rider Rhodes
I remember like it was yesterday – well, not really remember as I was too young but it’s been recounted so many times that it’s ingrained itself like remembrance within the labyrinth of my being. Or maybe I do remember since it was such a life-defining event.
Early morning and the air, like a hungover minister still shuffling off wooly remnants of a collective late night dew, moves improbably. From my crib, through open window I hear first aria of avian welcoming day. Sounds from the five-fifteen out of Ferguson build a rhythmic rumble heading into Rhodesburg, countervailing sweet melody while cutting steel course cross our farm.
The house, nothing to write home about – modest wood frame standing edge of a wheat field, had unwaveringly sheltered several of our generations, seemed as much part of this land as the big oak sentried nearby. Like it had farmed out of earth instead of wrought by human hand.
Discarded piece of paper flutters improvisational dance in jagged morning breeze that eddies the house. In concert, birds cease song as railroad resound draws drowningly near. Air grows still, akin to a world holding its combined breath – paper, losing accompaniment, pulls towards ground. In an instant, sound deafens as if train, having lost track, heads open field towards house. Atmosphere sucks away, vanished to vacuum while paper dissipates without history.
Another instant brings force beyond power as hereditary homestead is swept from existence. Plucked whole, flung through violent air effortlessly, like dandelion spores launched by child's breath. The instant after brings the Ferguson locomotive brutally planting to earth where farmhouse once stood. It would take several more moments before a kind of surreal calm overtakes this prospect of wrack and ruin. It would take years for this community to re-couple to memories and dreams.
It took two days before they found me in a cabbage field unscathed, still swaddled in my bedding, miles from where I started that journey. For a community I would be hero, beacon of hope reborn out of this landscape of devastation. Some said it was an earth shattering beginning portending great events of future as fortune had me miss the train that day. Yet no one claimed me since my familiars had literally been scattered by the four winds. So this village of survivors rallied to lovingly raise me their communal own. From that moment, forever re-christened Tornado Rider Rhodes.
Early morning and the air, like a hungover minister still shuffling off wooly remnants of a collective late night dew, moves improbably. From my crib, through open window I hear first aria of avian welcoming day. Sounds from the five-fifteen out of Ferguson build a rhythmic rumble heading into Rhodesburg, countervailing sweet melody while cutting steel course cross our farm.
The house, nothing to write home about – modest wood frame standing edge of a wheat field, had unwaveringly sheltered several of our generations, seemed as much part of this land as the big oak sentried nearby. Like it had farmed out of earth instead of wrought by human hand.
Discarded piece of paper flutters improvisational dance in jagged morning breeze that eddies the house. In concert, birds cease song as railroad resound draws drowningly near. Air grows still, akin to a world holding its combined breath – paper, losing accompaniment, pulls towards ground. In an instant, sound deafens as if train, having lost track, heads open field towards house. Atmosphere sucks away, vanished to vacuum while paper dissipates without history.
Another instant brings force beyond power as hereditary homestead is swept from existence. Plucked whole, flung through violent air effortlessly, like dandelion spores launched by child's breath. The instant after brings the Ferguson locomotive brutally planting to earth where farmhouse once stood. It would take several more moments before a kind of surreal calm overtakes this prospect of wrack and ruin. It would take years for this community to re-couple to memories and dreams.
It took two days before they found me in a cabbage field unscathed, still swaddled in my bedding, miles from where I started that journey. For a community I would be hero, beacon of hope reborn out of this landscape of devastation. Some said it was an earth shattering beginning portending great events of future as fortune had me miss the train that day. Yet no one claimed me since my familiars had literally been scattered by the four winds. So this village of survivors rallied to lovingly raise me their communal own. From that moment, forever re-christened Tornado Rider Rhodes.
