Alan Cried

I can get weepy at times. I try not to shed a tear in public, but once in awhile I can't help myself. I cried when we visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Mark thought it was strange that I cried and wanted to tell everybody he saw that "Alan Cried." Yeah, I know. What a dick. 

I found myself starting to get choked up while watching the news yesterday. Seriously, I almost went into an all out sob. I was watching old people in a nursing home sitting in water up to their chest. I saw people being plucked from homes that were nearly underwater. Kids sitting in a huge gymnasium like building waiting for it all to end so that they could go home, not knowing that they can't. I cried because I have an inkling of just what they're going through. It is one of the biggest reasons I left Florida for the much safer streets of Chicago. Hurricanes, I hate them. The hurricanes I went through in Fort Lauderdale were nothing compared to Harvey. Katrina, Wilma, Andrew, and some lesser hurricanes all hit us to some degree. The worst was Wilma. We went without electric for two full weeks. No water for five days, and when it did come back on, we were supposed to boil it. No telephone service for over a week. So what we had was heat and humidity without air conditioning. Toilets full of nastiness that we could only sort of flush with a bucket of water from the swimming pool. No phone with which to call people and whine about our lot in life. Long lines over at the gas station waiting for our turn to fill two gas cans. More long lines across the street at the bank where they were giving out water. The stink, the heat, the darkness at night without any illumination was disheartening. It was right then and there, while the electric was still off, that I decided that I was leaving. No way was I going to deal with hurricanes as I got older. No way did I want to be one of those old folks sitting in a nursing home while water swirled around me. At least I had my older brother from Orlando who came down to lend a hand. Even with that, I was miserable. Watching those images on the television, I can imagine just how horrible it must be to actually lose everything. So I sat and cried as I watched those poor folks down in Texas and I understand just a little bit about the horrors that they are facing.