Tropical Storm Erin

[giester2]

I know it doesn't concern many but I live in houston and we are about to get our first of several rainbands.   Expecting 2-5" of rain by Friday morning, more rain if Erin shifts a little to the North.

DeAnne
Daughter,Grand Daughter, Niece, and Cousin of Elk Countians

[frawin]

Deanne, it concerns me, we have been in Galveston for 5 days and got into Houston last night. We will head back to the desesrt in West Texas Saturday or sunday. I had seen estimates of rain for the Houston area of 5-10 inches. That is almost as much as our annual rain fall in West Texas. By the way Im knew Leanne well infact she graduated from Moline the same year I did from Howard. Jack and Mary were super people, they were so great at getting along with the young people that frequented toots in the early days.
Frank Winn

[giester2]

As long as we get an hour break between the bands, we shouldn't have much of a widespread flooding problem.  Now the street I work on floods with every rainstorm, and there are some other streets that will do the same (they all drain within an hour of the rain stopping).  These are the streets that you are going to see on the television, and the hype will start about us being underwater.

LeAnne is my aunt and is now retired and living in Salinas CA.  She is taking is taking care of Grandma Toots.  They are really neat people, and the stories they tell will make you laugh and cry.  My favorite Toots story is about her coming across an alligator in Moline KS in the middle of the street and doing her alligator stomp to scare it. 

[frawin]

Tell Leanne and Mary I said hello and wish them well from me.
Frank Winn

[Diane Amberg]

 We've been so quiet and now it starts. From now to November we watch those storms pop off the African coast and wonder what they will do. You all have to keep an eye on the Gulf of Mexico too. I will be watching.  DeAnne, how big was the alligator? How did it get there?

[Wilma]

I am hoping Erin will throw some rain into Kansas.  Keeping a close eye on that. 

Yes, DeAnne, tell us about the alligator.

[giester2]

Toots tells the story much better than I ever can but I will try.

The way I heard the story was.....

It was either 1962 or 1963 and Grandma Toots was getting ready for the start of the new school year.  She was walking across Plumb st on her way to the school, when something crawled out of the culvert.  It scared her at first and she gave a little shout.  Well the shout made this thing turn towards her, and upon turning it started to hiss at her.  She had no clue what it was.  The thing then turned and tried to get back into the culvert, but Toots didn't let it.  She says that she knew she would have to walk that same route everyday and that she would be too scared to walk it knowing that the thing could come out to get her at any time. So she started hollering and doing a little stomping dance in circle around it to keep it in the street. (Now when she told us this story in 2002, this little 90 year old lady got up and started to demonstrate the little stomp she did and corrected us when we did it wrong). She continued her little dance until a neighbor came to save her (Ira Thomas?).  It was then identified as an alligator.

The alligator was actually only about 2 ft long, Toots was convinced it was much bigger, and no one really knows what happened to it.

Rumor has it that the gator was either purchased on a senior skip trip or on a summer excursion by some high school kids and that it had escaped from whomever was keeping it.

[Diane Amberg]

  I don't think it would have survived a Kansas winter. Perhaps it turned into a purse somewhere.

[flo]

did I dream this or did I really hear a tale about an alligator in the Elk River south of Howard some years ago?

[frawin]

Florene, there were two of them, shot by Hottinger the Pharmicist, seems like in the 20s or 30s. I had always heard a travelling circus dumped them in the Elk River. The stuffed remains hung in the back of the drugstore until in the late 50s or early 60s. I used to go back there and look at them.
Frank