I Love Oklahoma(ns)!

It has been three weeks to the day since I've come from Japan. It feels like it's been longer.
Tonight is the first time in two years that I've got to see, smell, hear, and feel a supercell thunderstorm. I was afraid that it wouldn't be as great as an experience in the city (as opposed to the little town we lived in 30 miles outside of OKC before I went to Japan), but it was a little more interesting.
Here is the scene: About 7pm all of the basic channels and the Weather Channel were freaking out because there were thunderstorms with a large potential for tornados popping up all over the state. So my family, my good friend Stephanie, and I set down for a nice game of spades keeping one ear tuned in to the weather report in the background. About 20 minutes later, all of the weathermen were freaking out because a line of storms had popped up diagonal like across the state with a huge, rotating storm going through El Reno - a small podoc town just west of OKC - and heading straight east towards the city. Shortly after, there was pandemonium coming from all of the weather men as a weak, unorganized tornado was sighted just east of El Reno. In fact it tore the roof off some buildings at the towns local airport. Of course all of the news channels got the footage at all sorts of different angles - from helicopters, from the ground, etc. As the tornado danced back up into the clouds, the storm kept on a straight, slow path towards OKC. The supercell kept rotating, and as it slowly crawled into Oklahoma county, it started lowering, threatening to drop another tornado. I didn't know this before tonight, but if a tornado is sighted anywhere within Oklahoma county, tornado sirens will go off all over the county.
Sure enough, they went off. We did what any Oklahoman would do when a tornado siren goes off: run outside to see what can be seen. As we went outside, I noticed that many of our neighbors were already out on their porches looking at the menacing skies while keeping their ears tuned to the voice of Gary England blaring on their TV's inside their houses. There were people out walking who didn't seem in a hurry to be anywhere even as the wind was blowing, lightning was flashing, thunder was booming, huge, black clouds were coming, and tornado sirens were going off.
As I walked off the porch to catch a better glimpse of the oncoming storm, I felt myself being in a perfectly nostalgic moment. I remembered a 4th grader who had gotten over her absolute fear of severe weather after learning about storms and how tornados were formed, and how several days later, when a Spring storm came, for the first time in her life she looked up at the clouds in amazement instead of fear. How, from that point on, she would dream of learning more about this awesome force of nature and perhaps unlocking some of its mysteries. How she would spend many years with her head in the clouds (literally), soaking up everything she could about severe weather and getting yelled at by her mother every time a storm came through because she needed to come in or she would get struck by lightening.
As that storm approached, it was the perfect moment: the wind with the smell of rain on it, the ominous clouds filled with lightning, the deep, rolling thunder, the weathermen freaking out on the the TV (with Gary England leading the way), the tornado sirens. Yes, it was a very nostalgic moment.
When the sun went down, the storms lost their fury. After replaying the little tornado footage they had over and over again (most with the damage done at the El Reno airport included in it), the basic channels finally went back to their regularly scheduled programs. As I sat with my family and got beat at a game of spades because I am not daring enough to take the chance to go blind neal, I felt thankful - thankful to God for family, friends, storms, and that I am an Oklahoman living in the great state of Oklahoma.