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I’m Back!  With a harrowing tale… Hey every body!  I’m back!  This is Alf Herigstad resuming the Being A Better Man podcast after mother nature took me out for a few days.  As you may have noticed there was no podcast last Friday, or this Monday, and todays podcast is coming out late in the day.  I am sorry for the break in continuity, it’s the first time that I have ever missed releasing an episode on time and there is a good reason for it.  Here where I live in the wilds of Western Washington, we had a major weather event that causes severe damage. We thought it was a tornado, but turns out it was a micro-burst.  Essentially it was a super powerful storm with tornado like gusts of wind.  It cut a swath of destruction though our community and we were without power and internet for several days. Even as I am recording this episode we do not have internet…our power just can back on though, so I am getting ready for when our internet does come back on line. Everyone that went through this storm has a different story about what it was like for them, what they saw and what happened.  I am no different.   However, I am going to share my story with you, not just for the story aspect—but also because of the observations I made during the chaos. For those of you who don’t know, I spend a portion of my time being a substitute school bus driver.  I enjoy the interactions with the children and some of the other challenges that come with the position.  On the day of the storm I had an after school route from an elementary school, kids between kindergarten and 5th grade who had some sort of after school activity and needed to be brought home.  We had a little thunder storm earlier in the day with heavy rain and wind, and everyone thought it was over.  As I pulled up to the school and was waiting for the children to come out, I got out of the bus and was just looking around.  It was very eerie.  There wasn’t any wind, and the sky and everything else was taking on an unusual color. I looked to the southern sky and I saw clouds that were pitch black all across the southern sky from horizon to horizon.  There was something else though, a very odd cloud shape I hadn’t seen before.  It looked like it was welling up from somewhere evil, with little tendrils underneath it.  It looked…ominous, and foreboding.  Here are pictures of the approaching storm: http://www.beingabettermanpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_1142.jpg ()http://www.beingabettermanpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_1143.jpg ()

This odd, ominous cloud was clearly advancing toward where I was.  About that time the children started coming out of the school.  As they were boarding the bus I saw the first rain drops hit the windshield.  By the time all 23 kids were on board it was full on raining, and lightning and thunder had started up again. Being kids of this age, many of them were scared of the lightning and especially the thunder.  There were two adult aids who boarded with the children to help maintain order during the trip and all three of us were assuring the children that it wasn’t anything to worry about. By the time I had pulled the bus out of the parking lot and was on the street—everything changed.  It was as if the heavens had opened and began to pour out everything they had, all at once.  The wind seemed to be coming from every direction at once and the bus was rocking back and forth under its invisible influence.  The rain was so heavy that it wasn’t like rain at all, it was more like solid sheets of water falling from the sky, as if there was a gigantic bucket above us being poured out. To make matters worse, when I had started my day the sun was shining, so I had put on my dark prescription sunglasses.  My clear glasses were in the car.  Even though it was early evening, it was as dark as the middle of night.  The kids were asking me to please turn on