It's been a while since I posted a Lesson from Mom. Last week, she shared a classic:
Three generations of my family - Mom, two of her sons, and two of her grandsons - are currently taking training from the local National Weather Service to be certified as "storm spotters."
My home town, which has recently been hit hard by DHL closing its US domestic shipping service (laying off thousands of people in the area) - is also long-known in the Spring as "tornado alley." A warning siren system sounds each time serious dark clouds approach. As children, we were trained to go to the basement or the most reinforced room in a one-story house. We conducted tornado drills at school. Dad put candles and flashlights together in a "survival kit."
Mom says she's tired of going to the basement all of the time; so, she's going out with my brothers to find the storms! (Must be in the genes. Her father also tended to pile the four grandchildren all in the car and chuckle gleefully as he drove through the farm fields chasing lightening saying "we are in the safest place because we are grounded by rubber tires!.")
But Mom is more educated. "Lightening is not an indicator of storm intensity, " she informed me as I reminisced.
What I love is that - in the most dismal of economic times with 100s of For Sale signs in yards and families moving in together - someone is offering and my family is taking a course about a fascinating natural aspect of life in Ohio. Tornadoes.
This, to me, demonstrates persistence at its best - finding something new to be motivated about instead of sitting around depressed. In fact, I won't be surprised if the entire family becomes "Advanced Storm Spotters" by later taking the second course at the regional level. (They are already dreaming about it.)
Tornadoes don't care about the economy or respond to economic stimulus packages.
And Mom is not going to the basement either!
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