Texans weathering Christmas Day with wind, snow, dust and frozen cow pies

There is an old saying down here in Texas. Some say it is a “tired” and “worn out” saying. Nonetheless it goes like this:

“If you don’t like the weather in Texas, just wait five minutes and it will change.” I don’t know who first said that or of where the person spoke. It doesn’t really matter. What no one has said, or at least to me, today, is “Just because a saying is trite doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” Well, hell!

 

Christmas Day 2012 in Texas sure offered up a heapin’ helpin’ of some radically differing weather. Where I live, the rain came down pretty bountifully and I could hear the thunder as well as I could see the trees a’ whipping to and fro. Apparently some parts of the “Golden Triangle” where I live got really pounded. For instance, this store in a strip shopping center in Vidor, about 8 miles east of Beaumont:

 

This is the result of so-called “straight-line winds.” That is not a tornado but it can hit with the force of a hurricane gust and do just about as much damage.

I took a trip to the Jack Brooks Federal Building in Beaumont to check my mail and stuff. Lo and behold, the building had been without power since around noon on Christmas Day.

But even with the damage from wind, there was more crazy weather in store for rest of Texas like this dust storm  causing I-27 north of Lubbock to be shut down for awhile. Next thing you know we’ll be like the Okies of old, throwing every belonging on a flatbed pickup truck and heading to Californie!

The there were those “lucky” North Texas folks around Denton and the D-FW Metroplex who were snowed upon with that magical “White Christmas Snow” which freezes everything in time and is immediately followed by none other than Bing Crosby crooning: “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the one I used to know.  Come on sing-along-Bing, you knew White Christmas snows? Personally?  I’ve never experienced one of those magical White Christmas Snows but I would bet you dollars to a white-frosted doughnut that the snow is just like the rest of the snows. Sometimes it gets-a-deep, sometimes it gets-a-dusting.

I don’t know if that is the complete Texas weather picture on Christmas Day 2012. I suppose out in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert some freezing cow pies may have rained down. Or perhaps even the proverbial cats and dogs fell down with the animals no doubt colder ‘n hell and most assuredly pissed off having to make an entrance in such an abrupt manner.

That’s Texas for you. Old Santy and his reindeer really have to keep on their toes in the Lone Star State. If the weather won’t get  you, the guns will.