I've officially been a Bible Belt resident for approximately two months. As long as I don't mind driving for 40 days and 40 nights to find a synagogue (and I don't), it's fine. What I left behind in New York was the melting pot of religion, culture, dining, acceptance, stress, costly parking, foul-smelling public transportation and skyscrapers that throw bricks off their faces at pedestrians like kids throw water balloons out a second-story window in the 'burbs. Boy do I miss it.
Anyway, last week confirmed my belief that it was a good idea that we moved when we did. While we (the new Southern 'we') have ownership of the Bible-thumping loonies, in a place where everyone and his brother is an ordained minister of some sort, New York is somehow paying the price for being so open.
Being really far from Kansas, Long Island isn't exactly the first place you think of when you hear the word tornado. However, this past week, Dorothy and the gang decided to pay Islip Terrace a visit. Truthfully, if Long Island did have a flat, plainsy, Kansas-like area, Islip Terrace is it. Islip Terrace – and the entire South Shore of Long Island, for that matter – is a barren wasteland of flatness, strip malls and slightly-too-expensive housing. We North Shore types only do two things on the South Shore: 1) go to concerts at Jones Beach, and 2) use it as a cut-through to get to the Belt Parkway.
Back to the point: Islip Terrace apparently did something to piss off Mother Nature. As the region experienced the most violent rainstorm of the past century, a handful of Islip Terrace residents got the rare opportunity to see Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt speed past to try to get their crystals into the vortex of the tornado that opened a hefty can of whoop-ass on the town. Trees three feet wide snapped as easily as Daniel-son's leg in the final scene of The Karate Kid; a shed became dislodged from its foundation and wound up fully in a neighbor's yard (imagine the scene: "See, Mike? I told you I'd get my sawzall back from you one way or another."); and cars experienced damage that I'm sure will be a bitch to explain to the insurance company ("Well, Mr. Adjustor… I can't REALLY explain why the interior of the Taurus is sprouting saplings.)
At least nobody was hurt, and more importantly, Mrs. Cheever's beloved, hand-made wooden tulips escaped unscathed, even as they sat in the window box outside her living room, next to the mammoth tree that took out the power lines that once delivered electricity to the entire town of Islip.
And then there was the rain. THE RAIN! Seeing the pictures of the flooding reminded me of the time I spent in China. China, it should be noted, is a third-world country. They have virtually no infrastructure, including proper drainage, to deal with many of the daily problems they are faced with. When it rained there, everything flooded big-time, and bicycle-ridden men were hard up to deliver food orders to the local Jewish population. (Cultural note: Chinese food in China isn't the same as in the U.S. They use normal containers – not those ridiculous square boxes with the rickety wire handles.) Ironically, after looking at the Long Island pictures, I found myself hungry about an hour later.
What's not so surprising about Long Islanders is that, as evidenced by the photos, they don't seem to care that other cars are literally floating away in several feet of water. There's always some jackass in a four-wheel-drive (usually some wussy-type truck like a Honda CR-V) who just knows his vehicle was made for this exact situation and guns it into the temporary river delta - only to be the next putz calling for help from his brother-in-law that lives nearby and has a boat. These are the same people who fail to realize that it doesn't matter how many wheels you have driving when you're on ice.
As I understand it, the Island has dried out somewhat, and everything is back to normal. Everything, that is, except the sandbox in the Lembeck's backyard, which is now full of wet sand because SOMEONE forgot to put the lid on it before it rained.
To add insult to injury, New York City decided that same day that it needed some attention and immediately exploded. Well, it exploded in midtown. Apparently, people walking through Manhattan aren't jittery enough about potential terrorism. No, the street decided to add to their daily anxiety by spontaneously exploding in the heart of rush hour. A non-terrorist explosion, it caused a powerful steam geyser to spray up into the air. Keep in mind, steam flows freely in the underbelly of the City. The Indians obviously never realized the potential in steam and decided to sell the entire island, Empire State Building and all, to the white man for a West Virginia state quarter, a few nylon fibers and a George Forman Grill.
As New York heals, many devout locals there are seeking help from the Bible to make sense of it all. If they are able to find peace and understanding through it all, more power to them. In the meantime, I have to go warm up my car. Rosh Hashana is coming in a short 52 days and I can't be late for services.
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