Good idea to call the parents ASAP. News of the OK tornadoes was already up on the BBC website some time ago. We moved here in the spring of 1999. We had been here a month or two when the OKC-Moore tornadoes hit on May 3rd. Our rural low-lying area had such poor (as in almost nonexistent) TV reception and no cell phone service that we had gone to sleep with no idea that OKC and Moore had been hit. Then, I guess it hit the news in TX and all our friends and family were calling to see if we were okay. (Apparently none of them realized that Love County is not in central OK.....did they really think Tim drove to work from OKC to Dallas???? lol). When the phone starting ringing off the wall, we were like "What? A tornado? Where?" We didn't have a tornado shelter or even a weather radio and since we couldn't see the news, we didn't know a thing about the tornadoes. Of course, the next day when we were able to see a newspaper, we found out all about it. We immediately bought a weather radio and programmed not only our county but all the counties around us (both in TX and OK) into it. We then got internet service via DirectPC and TV via DirecTV. That all was probably within a month of the OKC-Moore tornadoes. By the following spring we had a tornado shelter. All my life in Texas, I was aware of tornadoes but rarely saw one. Ever since we moved here, I see funnels right and left. It is frightening. One night we saw four funnel clouds in the air near us, though they never touched down. I was in the storm shelter. My husband and adult son were standing outside watching the skies. I have trouble convincing them that they belong in the shelter with the door closed. Gotta work on that one a bit! During our second year here, friends who lived 2 miles away called and said said "come over and watch the storms with us...there are funnel clouds and you can sit on the porch and watch them". I hate to admit it, but we hopped in the car, ran right over there and sat there on the porch high on a hill and watched a few small funnel clouds moving away from their home. The clouds never touched down and we never were in danger, but I still cannot believe we did that. Being older and wiser now, we always have our weather radio 'alert' feature on, and our firefighter radios also have the NOAA weather channel on them. Plus, our county's Emergency Management Director has us on his notification list and automatically transmits weather watches and warnings as soon as he gets them. In this state, you cannot be too careful and the earlier the warning, the better. Ironically, the year after moved away from Fort Worth, they had a tornado very close to our old neighborhood....a mile or so away. That was in March 2000. My brother's home was under the path of the tornado while it was still in the air. My mom's house and our old house were a mile or two further north. I cannot believe I lived in Fort Worth for almost 40 years and never saw a tornado close by and then left and, bam!---they had one. I am an avid weather watcher now (it is better to know what's going on than to not know) but when we moved here, I basically looked at the forecast high, low and the chance of rainfall and otherwise ignored the weather. That was then. This is now. Now? I know you'd better be watching the weather in OK because anything and everything can and does happen here. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a area with perfect, calm weather....but I am not sure such a place even exists, though I have family members in San Diego who think it has the most perfect weather in the world. I am glad it all worked out well for you. I think there are a lot of people whose hearts are heavy in various parts of the state tonight. If you don't have nerves of steel when you move here, you have to develop them or the weather would drive us all absolutely freaking crazy. Dawn

My thoughts & prayers are with Cherlyn & your family. I have a former co-worker who is not expected to live much past April. She has skin cancer that is spreading rapidly.

OMG, I love the 'rack'! It very much relieved my compressed nerve pain. I had to adjust my rear view mirror every time I left my chiro! Peppi, keep us informed....we care. My husband opted for surgery when sciatica struck a blow. He was home the same day, walking around with comfort. His surgical wound was kept covered with a 2x3 piece of gauze! I hope that you have access to modern surgical procedures....which can be a much better option than injections.

"Lukk, care to share what's really going on with you? You know someone in law enforcement? You think they walk on water? Sorry, they're human like the rest of us. They make mistakes like the rest of us. I saw 2 videos of Alton Sterling's murder. One was a brutal close up. I didn't hear any "exploiting news reports" ... and I have many questions." Cindy, I don't know anyone in law enforcement and have actually had both good and bad experiences, certainly a lot more good than bad, but all the same. What I have a problem with is that everyone is so angry and committed to the idea that the officers shot those men with racial and murderous intent when we really don't know that. I also feel very strongly that the guns were a big contributing factor. Everyone is so focused on race, that they aren't even considering that. I remember back in the early 90's I once got pulled over for speeding by a Sheriff's Deputy. My purse was in the trunk of my car so I pulled over, unlocked the trunk and got out to get my purse. My back was to him as I reached into the trunk and the next thing I know the deputy who was standing behind his car door, had his gun drawn on me and was yelling for me to stand back from the car. All I was doing was getting my license and to see him yelling and pointing a gun at me like that was shocking, but later he explained how they never know who's in the car and always prepare for the worst case scenario. That experience and our conversation afterwards has always stuck with me. Sure the videos show what happened from one angle but they really don't tell the whole story. To have many questions is a fair response; to say they are murderers and bigots isn't. The news media exploits all stories like this because that's how they get their $$ you know as well as I do that they report misinformation all the time. On the kitchen forum there is a post about how reporters use so many adjectives in their stories that it often creates biases (in almost a subliminal way maybe?). I found it to be an interesting take. Here's the link if you're interested: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/4017120/think-on-this?n=25