Dallas Twister, 1957

Last year, during the summer, I got a telephone call from the Dallas Morning News. They were canvassing students of Sunset High School in Oak Cliff, who were in school anywhere in Oak Cliff during 1957. They were looking for people who remembered or had actually seen the 1957 Oak Cliff tornado. I told the reporter that I had in fact seen it --- even experienced it! He asked me if I would tell my story.

I told the reporter that I had not only seen it, but had been stuck in a bus, while out on a shopping trip with my older sister, Nancy, in downtown Dallas. I was thirteen years old and did not particularly feel the need for my sister to take me shopping for clothes. It was probably a good thing, though, since my taste in clohes, then as well as now, is pretty bad. Now that I'm an old guy, I've about quit trying to buy clothes for myself or my wife, since all of it will be returned, except the occasionaly package of white hankerchiefs or a few pairs of socks. I do shop well for my wife, however, if I limit my purchases to the 'tried and true' items. Over the years, I have become a real connoisseur of fine dark chocolates and I have the good eye of an Amsterdam gem merchant for nice jewelry! I've never made a bad purchase of those two items! Paula has enjoyed two pounds of Russell Stover's chocolates (she prefers the dark chocolates) every month for the 36 years we've been married. Now --back to the tornado....

We were heading back toward home on W. 10th Street when all of us on the bus saw the tornado! It was heading right down a street toward us. The bus driver panicked and wanted to 'step on the gas', but other drivers also panicked and their panic-button caused some of them to stop. People couldn't get away from the tornado, so they were getting out of their vehicles and attempting to run away from the tornado. It was still marching down a street, directly toward us. In just moments, it was upon us. My last 'mental movie' of the tornado was a swirling mass of very dark green (almost black) devastation, swooping right at us! There was a house -- then there was no house! Bricks, boards, trees, trash cans, fences, all kinds of debris was being swept right toward the bus. I saw boards thrown into homes -- and boards sticking out of brick chimneys where they had been thrown like spears! Bricks flying down the street like autumn leaves. We all knew that we would be wiped out, but it was upon us so quickly we could not have exited the bus and run away. (Run away! Run away WHERE??). The tornado was huge. As it towered over the bus, it suddenly lifted, and went directly over the bus. Our ears felt like they would burst, from the change in air pressure and the incredible noise. Screaming metal (I never knew that metal could actually scream!) and debris everywhere! We were in a large intersection on West Jefferson, and the tornado went over the bus and then ripped a telephone pole out of the ground, and threw it like a javelin right through a new black Ford automobile, whose driver had abandoned the vehicle in the middle of the intersection and had run for his life! The telephone pole shot through the car and was more or less suspended by the floorboard of the automobile. If the driver had remained with his vehicle the telephone pole would have cut him in half. We watched as the tornado continued on its path, until the volume of debris blocked a clear view of the tornado as it roared on through Oak Cliff.

Our bus driver had to get out of the bus and stand for a few minutes in order to calm down. My sister was embarrassed, as she wet her pants out of fear. Pretty embarrassing, as she was nineteen, going on 30! What a day! What a shopping trip THAT turned out to be.

The reporter for the Dallas Morning News put part of my long story in the paper. I was pretty excited --- MY 15 MINUTES OF FAME, or so I thought! I bought a copy of the paper and, noticed that most of the really good stuff had been left out of the article. .....I guess that's SHOW BIZ, right?