WE GOT A TORNADO

in Aumsville, 12 miles southeast of Salem.

No one died. Yea!

The local plumbing store is no more. It was in the center of town and the center of the story.

And the damned news people from Portland are beside themselves with reporting on this exciting event.

I was trying to watch a Perry Mason episode while enjoying my lunch and "Breaking News" interrupted the show. For the rest of the day, tornado reporting was the show of choice on all the local channels.

The reporters were handling the crisis just fine, until they started talking. One guy said that tornadoes in Oregon were very rare. What wasn't rare was that he told us that at least five times in a three minute segment.

My son and I sat here making fun of the reports and the people giving them. It was the only way we could tolerate the traditional weather crisis reporting of the local media. They tell you the obvious and then tell you again. Just in case, you missed the first five times they told you.

One point that came up over and over again was that no one had died. Rather than a "Thank God" for that fact, the anchors on the various stations sounded disappointed. One even went so far as to talk about how many deaths in similar situations were caused, not by the winds themselves, but flying debris. There just wasn’t enough tragedy to report. And yet, it is wonderful that no one died!

Later in the day, the stations were all doing their evening news from Aumsville. Lots of reporters in town and now the anchor desk folks had arrived. The local ABC channel had their anchors doing their shtick across the street from the remains of the plumbing store. In the background, a local teenage girl made sure she got on TV. Walking behind the anchors and acting as if she was headed someplace important, she suddenly stopped, turned toward the camera with a big smile on her face and waved. Then reverted to her important walk. At that point the anchors were turning the story over to one of their reporters. From what we saw, it looked as if the reporter was in another part of town. But, no! Who should appear in the background? The teenage girl, on a walk to someplace important. She stopped, turned and waved. Yep, the reporter was probably ten feet away from the anchors. Clear across town. Aumsville is small, but it ain't that small.

And now, the day after, on the early morning news we have more from Aumsville. Fortunately the stories are a bit more thought out and the rambling reports are gone. Except for the commercials for the stations telling how well they handled this crisis and got the news to us right away. What do they use for highlights? Clips of reporters telling us the obvious once again.

I don’t know how the Perry Mason episode turned out. That is no big deal. I regularly fall asleep during the last fifteen minutes of the show and still don’t know who done it. I know it wasn’t Perry’s client. The client was not guilty of murder or murdering the news.