Growing up in Northern Alabama, I remember a tornado tearing through the city when i was around eight. As of five years ago, this particular tornado was one of the top five most devastating tornadoes in the country. The precautionary steps we took were to clear the most centrally located closet in the house just in case we needed to jump in quickly, and for all of us to sleep on the sleeper sofa with the television on all night. I have two younger brothers, so you can imagine the five of us on this fold out bed. Between the barometer (and doppler), warning signs of danger were witnessed, a tornado watch was issued, and action was taken – my parents woke us up and took us all downstairs to safety.

I am reminded of this childhood storm by all of the weather-related destruction we have experienced in this country and around the world over the past five years. During times of threatening weather, we are educated (or should i say, re-educated) on the meaning and measure of barometric pressure, as it relates to tornados and hurricanes. As the barometric pressure increases, we know that improved weather is to follow. In like manner, when the pressure falls, we can read this as a warning sign of impending foul weather.
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Clothes, hairstyle, mind, sheets, direction, job, bandages, major, roommate, channels, favorite [restaurant, band, color, etc], name

Growing up means change. We experience a lot of changes early in life. Even though time seems to be slipping by quicker as I grow older, I believe the rate of changes in my life was greater thirty years ago. For instance, I remember when i had to start shaving. I was in an informal contest with another guy to see who could go the longest before shaving, even though we both needed to long before [days were like weeks]. I couldn’t stand it, so I lost the contest and shaved first.
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“5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Blast off!!! Mission control, we have lift off! It is now 9:37pm, and we have just breached the outer atmosphere. All systems are a-okay. Three more minutes, and we will be on our path heading toward our lunar orbit to then be catapulted into outer space.”

This was almost a nightly adventure when I was about seven. I have never wanted to go to bed very early, and this helped extend the day. I grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, home of the Redstone Arsenal and the Space and Rocket Center. It is a sister city of Houston connected by the space program. I remember watching the first lunar landing. If my memory serves me correctly, we got a new television that year. The television had tubes that burned out as it got older, and I remember going to the store to get replacements. Dad would stand there at this very large display, try to match the tube size and pin pattern after looking up the model number, only to learn that we needed to go to another store because they didn’t carry the one we needed.
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