After that idyllic Saturday morning, I waited till the afternoon to go gas up the car and make a stop at a store. When I pulled up at the BP station, there was a guy selling shrimp from coolers on the back of his pickup. You see these shrimp sellers every year. His hand lettered sign read:
FRESH GULF SHRIMP
JUMBO SIZED.

The nerve, the irony, of selling shrimp in front of a BP station. He had no customers. Normally, he'd have people buying them up to freeze till next shrimp season, but who really believes they're safe?

So I pulled up to the pump with the driver's side window open, when suddenly out of the clear blue sky came this blast of air over and through the station--very strong wind, blowing sand and grit, pine needles and twigs in a sandstorm to equal the Sahara. Everyone was freeze framed by the sudden explosiveness of the event. I put the driver's side window up but it was too late. Grit and sand and debris got in my hair and covered the dashboard. Now when I put the window up and down it makes a crunchy gritty sound. When I went in to pay, I noticed the shrimp man was gone. Maybe the shrimp gods were showing their displeasure at BP?

I went home and sat in the swing and took the clips from my hair and shook it out over and over and took off my blouse and shook it out. I phoned Dottie and she said it might have been a wind shear or down draft--that phenomena that comes out of the clear blue that can push a plane to the ground to crash. It puzzles me; I wish I knew what it was that caused it. It was powerful, whatever it was.

susil