Hanna . . .

Today's paper says we'll be spared, that Hanna is following in the steps of Bertha and Floyd, Bonnie and Fran. Just a few days ago, Fay broke Donna's longtime record . . . but not my heart.

Donna is the one hurricane I haven't forgiven--maybe because she stole some of my childhood's simple pleasures when I was miles away in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania Dutch country, not even able to find solace in saying that I too had faced her fury and survived.

Donna erased the shacks from Cape Carteret. The shacks--they were really all the name implies--were where I saw my first queen conch shells, gaping holes in their exquisite spirals, evidence of harvesting for conch stew. I've never been tempted to try my hand or my taste buds at conch stew but I've also never lived in a home without a queeen conch shell on display somewhere . . .

Donna tore down the two fishing piers, washed up fishing boats, on the pluffmud flats where my brothers and sister and I played on weekends and summers. Somewhere--not sure where--is the picture I painted (during my very abbreviated teen artist phase) of that aftermath . . .

Donna washed up a treasure trove of shells from the Atlantic deep. My family--again without me--brought home bucketsful. A few years ago, I inherited that collection--and the Sanibel collections too--some saved in a plastic container that had once housed wire used in my parents' electric motor repair business.

I cut my hurricane teeth on another "H" hurricane--Hazel . . . She earned my respect. Another "H' hurricane--Hugo--came close to challenging Donna's status as heart-breaking, beyond forgiveness. But I was no longer a child, no stranger to loss and change and adjusting and moving on . . .

I would wish, though, that Hanna stay away from the paths of Hazel, Donna, Floyd, Bertha, Bonnie, Fran . . . stay away from the places where my childhood memories are rooted . . . stay away from where I'm from . . .