We played a lot of cards on the porch

We played a lot of cards on the porch after Fran came through Durham in '97. It came through Sunday night, and we didn't get the power back until Thursday. We slept through the storm itself, but when we woke up Monday and didn't have any power we weren't that surprised--we lost power every time it rained hard in that house. We didn't lose any trees or anything, and so when Alice's receptionist called and asked if she had to come to work Alice told her of course she did. We didn't realize how serious it was until I got in the car to go to work and couldn't find a radio station.

It was ungodly hot for October, so since we had a big front porch with rocking chairs and a swing Rob and Greg and Brian came over and we all sat on the porch and drank warm beer and played cards for the next few days. It was too hot to sleep upstairs in our bedroom, so we pulled our mattress down into the den and slept on the floor in there. The south side of town had power, so we went and ate at the Panda Inn buffet a bunch. The whole thing was kind of an adventure. We did lose the fish after a few days--didn't even think about the aerator not working. Felt kind of bad about that as all we would have had to do was change the water out.

Watching the news when we got the power back, a reporter on WRAL asked a power crew down from Ohio somewhere if they'd ever been to Raleigh before. When they responded in the negative, the reporter asked them what they thought about it. "It's tore up," the guy said. Brian, who still didn't have his power back, did the only honest-to-god spit take I've ever actually seen in person

We finally heard from Brian this evening. He moved to Biloxi about two years ago, and we've been worried about him. He's fine. When I asked him how his house was, he dead-pan told me "It's tore up."

-Andy