CHANHASSEN:

One night in the Spring of 1990, I lay awake in my
room, a box decorated in chins, fly screen windows,
windows open, airless, listening to the approach of
another storm. Every week they tested the tornado sirens
on the edge of town, prairie country,the state of 10,000 lakes
on the banks of the Mississippi.
We were billeted in a one street town with a dinner theatre,
a bar, a parade of local shops, a half built hotel &
a drive-in bank. Every morning the cops would call in for coffee
& donuts rest up talking to the owner, monitoring their radios.
“Thunderheads are coming in” he said, looking like Kenny Rogers
as I slipped back to the chins room after breakfast.
That night, as I lay awake in my room, listening to the
approach of another storm I reached for my note book & wrote,
‘Thunder, Thunder, Lightning ahead’

(K)