September 13, 2008

Dear Ones,
Scattershooting and wondering what Mr. Ike is going to do to Tyler, TX. Early Saturday morning now, the winds are beginning to build. Friends have asked us what we are doing to get prepared for Ike's trek up from Houston. We brought all the potted plants and hanging baskets in to what we call the sun porch, a screened-in room on the south side of the house between the bedroom wing and the garage wing of our home. We moved the big garbage cans into the garage. We filled some containers with water, and I pumped a couple of inches of water out of the pool. If we get as much rain as is predicted, and if we lose electrical power, we don't want the pool filling and running over. My guess is that the water would run toward the back fence instead of the house, but we don't know that. Keeping the pool water chemically balanced is a bit of science and a bit of art. I hate to pump water out when I've got it just right, but the rain will ruin that balance anyway, so probably better to balance it again later than to have it overflow (especially in the wrong direction).

On our way back home last night from a S/S party out at the church's lake property, we went by the old Wal-Mart building to see how the evacuees were faring. That building had been prepared by the city to temporarily house up to 2000 people. There were several police cars there, and it was easy to spot the 30+ porta-potties placed alongside the outside wall of the building. The parking lot was full. We went on from there to the church to see how things were going there. Our gym is a designated Red Cross sanctuary, and it seemed to be doing a booming "business" too.

I was in a store yesterday behind a lady checking out who gave the clerk an out-of-town phone number. I overheard her say her family was fleeing the storm and they had already heard that their home was under water. The young clerk could only say, "I don't even know what to say to you." She was buying some Internet phone equipment, and I wondered if she was wanting to keep in touch with others via an Internet connection in her hotel.

My youngest brother and his family live in a suburb north of Houston, and my oldest sister and her husband live in Lake Charles, LA. My guess is that both of those areas have really been hammered by Ike. We'll hear more from them later, I'm sure.

My dad had owned a small 410 shotgun with a pistol grip handle. Mossburg made these for home defense, and Mother gave it to Toby for Laura now that he'll be away from home 5-6 days at a time. I went out to Gander Mountain, the outdoors sports store, to have them ship it to Toby in Ohio. If you don't know, you cannot mail or ship a firearm like you would a fruitcake for Christmas. Farrell, our S/S class member who works for the USPS, had told me, "Don't even think about sending a firearm through the mail. A couple of fellows in suits will ring your doorbell and you'll be in big trouble." Guns have to be shipped by stores (and TO stores) that have a federal firearms license. Toby told me there is a Gander Mountain in Columbus, so that sounded like a reasonable plan. Typically the sending store charges a fee, and the receiving business charges another, often $60-$100 for the transaction. Arlene in Ohio told me there would be no fee on her end if the shipping was done via their stores' network. The Tyler store only charged $25, so that sounded like a good deal. My challenge was getting the Tyler store to help me. I had been standing at the firearms counter for 10 minutes with no clerk in sight when I decided to use my cell phone to call the store and ask the operator to send someone to the gun department. A young man ambled over after a few minutes, and when I told him what I wanted to do, he said they couldn't do that for me. I said, "Sure you can. Is there a manager available?" He called for one, Will, and he didn't know how to, either. He called another, Berry, and they put their heads together with the gunsmith to figure it out. Arlene had told me to have the Tyler folks call her if they had questions, but none of these fellows wanted to talk to her. They finally came up with a plan to "acquire" the 410 from me for a penny and then UPS it to Ohio where it could be picked up after filling out paperwork on that end. When it was all said and done, I asked Will if I should pay the $25, and he was glad I had reminded him of that small detail. I guess East Texans hold onto their guns; these Gander Mt. fellows knew they had heard something about this in their training, but they had never done it before.

We plan to visit with the Ohio Clines next week, and perhaps the Mossburg will be there by the time we arrive. Toby is due in to NYC this afternoon and should be home in Groveport sometime tonight. He flys back to Hong Kong on the 25th and plans to be there another month before he starts a regular schedule. It looks like his home base will be NYC, and I think he plans to "commute" from OH when he has to fly. He'll make two 5-day trips a month from NYC over the North Pole to HK and back. He says, "It's a tough job, Dad, but someone has to do it." I guess...

Kate and Scott made a quick trip to Lewisville on Thursday morning to sign off on some house details. There are always some quirks and kinks to building a new house.

Enough for now. Storm details later, maybe some pictures, too.
God's blessings,
Jerry for Suzie too