Big Black Storm

Road, field, and sky through windshield at 4 p.m. CT Tuesday.
Note: That IS NOT a hillside back there behind the tree line.  That’s black sky.
(click any image to enlarge)

It didn’t seem to matter that the western hemisphere’s tallest cross sits just a few miles from here.

Frozen hell blew into town late Tuesday afternoon and quickly caught the area in its icy grip. Winds gusted to 50 mph and weather forecasters issued tornado watches. Between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., the temperature dropped from 51 degrees to 28 degrees Fahrenheit. When a customer and I climbed into his truck to head back to another location, he whipped out a telescoping ice scraper that would have made Tim Allen proud. Against the wind, his truck never relaxed enough to settle into overdrive.

By 6:15, the mercury dipped to 18 while thunder clapped and sleet bounced off the truck. The wind still blew.

In short, it sucked.

My co-worker and I retreated to a booth at a local family eatery, where we stuffed ourselves silly from salad to steak. The French Silk pie was, in a word, inadvisable. But it was delicious.

What did I do the next night when it was 18 degrees out? Grabbed the car keys from my co-worker and headed out the door to find the area’s only landmark. It’s amazing how getting behind the camera can block my perception of reality. My fingers and ears, unprotected during my shivery photo shoot, still burn a little as I type this.

Cross Reflected on Car RoofI captured this idolater’s behemoth to the best of my traveling camera’s limited wide-angle ability. It’s 198ft tall — almost 20 stories high — and the flat surrounding landscape allows clear views from several places around town. So, please forgive any dead space I had to include to accommodate the whole of its unholiness.

I held the camera for a vertical shot that incorporated a reflection off the car’s roof, and then set it on a brochure dispenser for a self-timer shot including me for scale. I’m about half way between the cross and the camera, and I’m 5′11″, so judge the size as you will.

Silhouette of MeI imagine if Jesus lived in today’s world, he would turn to the trucker behind the wheel (yes, Jesus totally would be a hitchhiker) and say, “Whoa. Look at the size of that cross. Somebody’s going to Heaven!”

Now, if only someone would photochop Christ of the Ozarks on this thing, we’d have something funny on our hands.