uniquely midwestern

It must be spring. I heard a siren that told me it was spring. So it must be so.

On Tuesday, I decided to run down in the Valley. I ran from roughly Mastick (on the bridle trail to where it fords at Cedar Point where I picked up the asphalt trail) to the end of the all purpose paved trail near Berea Falls. Anyway, around ten o’clock and on my way out, I heard the most god-awful siren. Sounded kind of like a cross between a police car and an ambulance and it was LOUD.

Started looking around for a reason. The weather was calm — slight wind, mostly cloudy, no rain forecasted. Could the airport — Cleveland Hopkins is very close to the Valley (planes constantly are going over ahead at low altitude) — be under some sort of attack? (Oh where your mind wanders post 9/11) Was an emergency vehicle coming for some sort of huge five alarm fire? (I kept turning around to check — no dice). Should I be continuing my run?
I decided to keep running. I figured if something bad was going to happen, well, what was I going to do about it anyway? Plus, perhaps the problem was behind me. I was probably five miles away from the car; there was no way I was going to make it back in time to avoid disaster. So I ran on and tried to mentally prepare for an air raid. Or something.

Eventually the siren stopped right after I crossed the Barrett Road ford. I continued on my run. It was a good run. On the way down the steep hill after the Falls, I saw a red-tail hawk. I was so close I could have reached out and touched the hawk. It did not fly; it just was content to let me run right on by.

It turns out the siren was one of the cities — must have been Berea or Brook Park given my location — testing their tornado sirens. I missed the news the night before so I didn’t know they were testing them.

I guess the tornado siren is something uniquely midwestern — I’m sure places like Oklahoma and Kansas have them too. But when I heard a siren going off in Gettysburg and said to my friend — who grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York and now lives in southern New Jersey — that it sounded like a “tornado siren,” he said “huh?” Apparently he’d never heard of such a thing. I can recall tornado drills in school. Obviously he never had those either. Thats when I realized the tornado siren must be uniquely midwestern.
Anyway, spring is tornado season (so is summer) so I guess hearing the siren means spring is definitely here. Today it was 70 degrees when I went running. I broke a sweat and soaked my shirt for the first time since 2005. (I also wished I had brought water with me) Oddly, most people I passed in the park were trying to run in longsleeves or, stranger still, longsleeves and long pants. How odd.

The warm weather isn’t going to last, but I’ll enjoy it today. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 50s. Any day its not snowing is ok with me. I prefer the 70s — I like being warm, but I’ll definitely still take the 50s.

Tags: Cleveland, spring, tornados