Perhaps you’ve been watching the news and noticed the huge storm system traveling through the Midwest–it stretches from Mid-Kansas up to Minnesota.
Now generally when you think of a storm system like that, you think of a system moving perpendicular to its line. You imagine it working like a squeegie, traveling across the nation. But that’s not what this system’s like–instead its like a string of beads being pulled along a table by one end. Which means that every point along the line experiences one storm after another after another.
I was just coming back from my final break at work when the tornado warning was issued for our area. I immediately started gathering co-workers and moving everyone downstairs. The tornado warning was scheduled to expire at 8:00–45 minutes later (when I was supposed to be clocking out).
Thankfully, I had been reading Pride and Prejudice on my break and still had it in my hand. After we learned how long we would be stuck in the basement, I offered to read out loud. Five women took me up on the offer. So I started, “It is a truth universally acknowledged…”
The warning was extended to 8:15. I read “Within a short walk of Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennets were particularly intimate.” I had just finished “The boy protested that she should not; she continued to declare that she would, and the argument ending only with the visit.” when the announcement came that the warning had been extended to 8:45. I went for a drink, then returned to begin the sixth chapter. We were a page from finishing the sixth chapter when the warning was finally allowed to expire.
My coworkers said I need to come read to their children–they want their children to learn to read and learn to love reading, but they cannot help them. Three of the women listening were from Sudan, one was from Vietnam. None of them feel that they read well enough in English to adequately train their children. But they loved the book. And they want their children to learn to love such books too. So I have a standing invitation to come and read to their children.
I might just have to do so before too long.