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This will date me. When I was learning to drive, I was taught hand signals for right and left turns and for stopping. Oh, we had blinkers way back then, but knowing the correct hand signals for turning was another part of learning to drive.

            Nowadays, with our electric windows automatically up all the time and air-conditioning so comforting, hand signals are not used and, I’m fairly certain that any driver under the age of forty or fifty might never have heard of them.

            What made my weird (there’s that adjective hung around the neck of JD Vance), what made my weird mind think of driving hand signals? Hurricane Debby. I am thankful for her hanging her left hand out the window at a ninety-degree angle and making that right hand turn away from Southwest Georgia and I don’t even mind that she didn’t use her blinkers!

            As of the writing of this column, I’m not sure we will get one-half inch of rain. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining and I don’t feel in any way slighted. Our Flint River will do just fine.

            Any talk of tropical storms and hurricanes bring back memories of Michael in 2018. I was getting a donut at my favorite Bainbridge Donut Shop and the proprietor was frying those donuts and shrugged his shoulders when I asked him what he thought about the storm.

            “I don’t think it’s going to do so much” he said prophetically.

            “Yeah,” I replied, “that’s what I heard about Michael back in 2018. About this time of the day on that infamous day when Michael paid us a visit, there were many around town talking, nonchalantly, about the incoming hurricane.

            That morning, I was helping our piano player and the owner of Dixie Dandy, Walter Goodman, put some protective plywood up around the windows of the store. We were hopeful that all our work would be for naught.

            My donut friend said, “Debby ain’t no Michael!”

            Hurricane Debby was a walk in the park in comparison to Michael. This Gulf storm just did make the Category One mark and, when it came ashore in the Big Bend area, it quickly was diminished to a tropical storm. I shouldn’t say “just a tropical storm,” because if one happens to be in her path, the rain is going to be Noah-like, if you know what I mean.

            On the other hand, that Michael was a monster! I would not be surprised if there are still a few roofs in our county that have blue tarp reminders on them. Since, I make the trip to Panama City Beach often, there are forests of pines that continue to lean and show the devastation of that once-in-a-lifetime (I hope!) storm.

            My daughter and her family, who have lived in upper state New York, just moved to Davenport, Florida, a few weeks ago. Davenport is thirty mile south of Orlando in Polk County and I talked to her and said, “Debby welcomes you to Florida!”

            She laughed and said, “Just my luck! I lived in New York for almost twenty years and braved the snow for half the year. So we finally get closer to home in sunny Florida and here comes the Welcome Wagon, a hurricane and a flood!”

            Georgia’s east coast, South Carolina, and who knows what other areas are seeing record amounts of rain and we need to pray for them, just as they prayed for us during our times of Michael. But I am thankful that Debby let down her window and stuck her left hand up and made that great right turn. Thank you, Lord!