I don’t remember how old I was, about ten or eleven. That would put my brother, who was six years older, at 16 or 17—a good age to talk back to mother.
It’s supposed to be a cliché to say it was a dark and stormy night, but that was what it was, a dark and stormy night. We listened to the radio, cracking with static, as we await the latest updates on the weather. We lived in Gainesville, Texas, along the Red River, which meant we were in tornado alley. It was the middle of spring, perfect time for a perfect storm. Then we heard it. A tornado roared down the state highway that changed into the street where we lived on the south side of town. Witnesses saw the funnel dipping out of the dark sky. With disaster on the way, I was ready to wet my pants. While I had never seen a twister, I had seen the results of a twister. They weren’t pretty. Little did I know the real storm was about to erupt right in the middle of our house.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” my mother demanded of my brother who was opening every window.
“Equalizing the air pressure,” he replied with confidence.
“That’s just going to blow everything around! Close those windows!” Mother screamed.
I looked out the window at the landscape. The sky looked like it was seasick and was as quiet as the congregation when the town whore decided to come to church. It was time to head for the tornado shelter; that is, if you had a tornado shelter. I remembered when Mother tried to talk Dad into digging a storm cellar. He said they cost too much money. A twister hadn’t hit us yet so it probably never would, he explained to Mother. Her veins bulged from her neck. Dad had only one eye so I guess he didn’t notice she was about to explode. On this night when the tornado barreled toward our house, Dad was still out on his Royal Crown Cola truck. Neither rain nor sleet nor tornadoes kept Dad from his rounds of delivering soda pop.
“Everybody knows if you equalize the air pressure in a house, a tornado can’t destroy it,” my brother said in a calm voice.
“But all my good china will break!”
“Rather the good china break than lose our lives,” he responded.
“That’s just stupid! Close those windows!”
My other brother, who was twelve years older than I, paced from the front door to the back door, puffing on his cigarette.
“I just hate spring,” he muttered. “My allergies drive me crazy and then those tornadoes. I just hate spring.”
By this time I decided to go to bed and hide under the covers. If I were lucky I’d go to sleep. If I didn’t wake up, it would mean the tornado hit and we all died. If I did wake up, it meant the tornado skipped us and the open window argument would have been for nothing.

Like most of the crises in our house.