With the certainty of Hurricane Florence bearing down on the east coast of the United States and the Carolinas in its direct path, I am reminded of the times in my life we have been threatened by wind disasters.
My daddy feared tornadoes and high winds, and if in the night the wind would start whistling around our house and down through the chimney, he would wake us have us to dress and sit on the side of the bed until all was calm again. I wondered what difference sitting on the bed instead of sleeping in the bed would make, but he said we did not want to get blown away in our night clothes. We at the very least needed to try to protect ourselves, not just sleep through the storm. He always 
told us a story during these times of a woman he knew as he was growing up that had slept through a tornado and the next thing she knew she was hanging in a big oak tree half dressed.
This story was very real to him, so we were always dressed during high winds. My mother, being the “hard-shelled Baptist” always told him, “If the Good Lord wants you, he will pull you from under the bed night clothes or not.” They would always have this argument and Daddy would say, “But the Good Lord gave us sense to help ourselves.” It always ended the same – us dressed and waiting on the side of the bed to take our perch in the big oak tree.
When we moved into our big house several years ago, we discovered an underneath storm cellar. Tall steps go down from our back porch to an underground concrete room large enough to fit our entire family inside. We would definitely be safe from all the winds and rains coming from the heavens here in this little secure shelter. However, for someone like me who is extremely claustrophobic, this shelter/room holds a terrifying scenario. Suppose we do have horrendous high winds and they blow so severely that my big house completely falls on top of the entry to our safe room? We would be trapped! I may be alive for a few minutes, but I would die from mental and nervous tension. As I say, I am just not mildly claustrophobic; I am severely claustrophobic. I have been trapped in a bathroom stall and crawled underneath when no one could hear me screaming. I was trapped in a retail store when it closed. The police had to come and get me out immediately, or I am sure I would have thrown something heavy through the plate glass window to breakout. I can get an article of clothing hung on me and I will rip the garment to pieces to escape. As an elevator door closes, I become a little panicky as I imagine it might not reopen on my designated floor. Once the battery on my car ran out of power as I drove down a street here in town and everything locked down, windows and doors. I was locked in the car’s snare. Luckily, someone saw me and called a locksmith before I freaked. Have you ever tried to break a car window from the inside? If you ever see me in a situation of entrapment, please please help me
I made this for our Ladies’ Bible Study last week and it was really delicious.
Bible Study cake
1 8 oz. container of soften cream cheese
3 soft sticks of “real” butter
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
3 cups of cake flour
1 t. vanilla
Cream together butter, cream cheese and sugar. Add eggs one at a time mixing well. Add flour and stir until just mixed. Stir in vanilla. Pour in greased tube pan and bake 325* for 90 minutes. Allow cake to cool for 1 hour before turning out.
