That was quite an article. Thanks for sharing it with us, Lisa. My dad didn't have much good to say about Gary England. But Dad was a man who put his family in the cellar he built concrete block-by-concrete block, and then would go out into the backyard to study the storms. When he felt the storm was coming, he would run down the steps and pull the door closed. He had built the door with a counter weight pulley so you could lift it and bring it down. Nothing would take that door off it's hinges! This article brought back lots of memories of my childhood. We hated the cellar! My sisters and I would be barefoot in our pjs, as the storms usually hit after bedtime. Lots of creepy crawlies in the cellar along with Mom's canned goods.

Sandy

Lisa,

I saw that story on newsok.com this morning and went and read it, following the jump to the nytimes website to read the whole thing. I loved it and thought the writer did a great job of describing the tornadic weather and Gary England and others as well.

Living down here in the sticks, we cannot pick up OKC stations and do not have the pleasure of watching Gary England, but he certainly is a legend. I am sure people will have Gary England withdrawal after he retires from broadcasting. When I was a kid in Fort Worth, our Gary England was a meteorologist named Harold Taft. He's the only TV weather guy my dad would listen to, and it was a sad day for us all when we lost him from this world much to soon. His hand-picked successor is about to retire now, which makes me feel really old.

Sandy, I have childhood memories like that too. We keep our tornado shelter dry and bug-free because I am determined that I am not going to share a tornado shelter with bugs. One day Tim opened it up to air it out when it was supposed to be a bad weather day and left it open for several hours before closing the door back. Apparently a snake crawled in, made itself at home and shed its skin. I wasn't a particularly happy camper when I found the snakeskin down there on another day. Nowadays if we leave it open to air it out, we check it for snakes and spiders before we close the door.

There are several of the old tornado shelters with those big counterweights here in our neighborhood, and they look like they have been here for decades.

Dawn