As a little girl I never found tornadoes scary.  In fact they were a source of great excitement, testament to the fact that I never had a close enough call with one to become properly frightened.  Tornado drills were a welcome interruption to school every spring, several times per season, and our family’s evening meals were frequently set against the backdrop of Gary England’s affable, in fact folksy weather reports and warnings.  We had safety plans in place, of course, and my parents always made sure we were safe.  But it was just a feature of life. 

   We grew up learning to recognize wall clouds, hail clouds, and that eerie yellow glow that our skies could adopt with just the right atmospheric changes.  We smelled rain, we felt electricty, and we giggled while hiding from tornadoes in the innermost windowless room of the house.  For us it was the utility room, and we always wore good shoes, just in case a tornado indeed struck and we had to walk around outside in sharp debris.
  
   As an adult my feelings about tornado season are quite different.  I have been through two formidable storms now, and several smaller ones, thankfully uninjured every time.  But I have seen the overwhelming dangers as well as the merciless property damage that tornadoes can deliver.  Even the best insurance coverage cannot make recovery painless.  And of course the loss of life is a very real possibility.

   Our hearts go out to the town of Joplin tonight as they buckle down to collect their families and rebuild after the devastating tornado yesterday.  The suddenness and brutality of a strong storm like that will rattle your nerves for a very long time. 

   Kudos, Mom & Dad, for making sure we always felt safe during Oklahoma tornado season.  We are so blessed!

   The work we choose often has a lot more to do with filling a financial or otherwise practical need (like health insurance, daycare, etc) than it does intrinsic value or personal satisfaction.  At least in my exposure to this world, most people work because they have to work, and they stay in unhappy jobs because those jobs pay big bills.  Sometimes, though, life is blessed with a job that serves up both a paycheck and a personal reward.  Such is the case for us right now, thank you Lord.

   In describing my husband’s work I will inevitably reveal my wide-spilling ignorance, sorry Handsome, but hopefully the basic truths are here.  He does good stuff, man.  Together with some incredibly hard working people at the State of Oklahoma, he has his capable hands in the goings on of our public utility services.  They not only regulate prices and tariffs (laws) but they also spur education, efficiency reform, job enrichment, and the overall strength and futures of the industries they regulate .  And that’s just HERE! 

   Did you know, fellow Okies, that our state is a global hub for natural gas capture and delivery?  We set the standards, baby.  There are countries all over the Eastern hemisphere where homes and businesses are just now beginning to receive gas piped in for heating, cooking etc.  Right this minute a woman in an opposite time zone from here is excited that soon she’ll be able to turn on her interior stove and cook dinner for her family then run hot baths, rather than have propane hauled through town on a donkey.  That sounds a bit Susanne-Struthersy, but it’s just true.  And who is helping these countries establish brand spankin-new systems?  Our Great State.

   People are amazingly capable of great things.  The unseen systems of our modern world are just fascinating, from ground level production and deliveries to fluorescent-light conference rooms and courtrooms, I doubt we’ll ever know all of it, all these systems, all the businesses of human effort that make daily life so comfy. 
   Hug your civil servant today.  Or…pat him on the posterior if you think you can get away with it…  I just did.