After a long, fitful night of sleep, I awoke Monday morning ready to face the world again from the Courier office.

Outside my window, I heard the sounds of a storm. That meant that unless I was quick, I would be getting wet when I tried to go to work.

I heard my mother leaving to take my nephew, Kevin, to work. Kevin had injured his arm over the weekend. My mother was happy to take him to the doctor, but really for her it was an excuse to see Kevin’s son, Karson.

My father was getting ready to go sing with his group of senior citizens.

Both should have been gone by the time I was ready to go to work.

Then my father entered my bedroom and said, “We’ve got to get a tree out of the driveway. One has fallen across the road.”

So I quickly got dressed in my “real work clothes” and prepared to go clear the driveway. Meanwhile my father remembered how much help I can be in clearing the driveways. My mother said the tree was probably a foot in diameter.

I resisted the opportunity to joke, “Diameter? Well how big is it in Dacusville?” But I knew two people in their 70s and their fat son wouldn’t be able to move the tree. My father reached the same conclusion and called somebody who has cut trees out of our way previously and asked them if they will come. They agreed, and while my parents went outside to wait for them, I went to take my morning shower. My father called me from the driveway, which is more than a quarter of a mile long, and said he’d call back when the driveway was clear.

I took a leisurely shower, got dressed and then decided to call my father, thinking he must have forgotten to call me back. So I called and asked if the driveway was clear.

He said yes, but he and my mother were waiting outside in their cars, preparing to go pick up Kevin and take him to the doctor. Turns out my father couldn’t let the opportunity to see Karson pass either.

So I finally headed to work about an hour and a half later than I had planned.

But I am here now, ready to face whatever storms may come the rest of the day.