The Beauty of Nature

   Today, as I was driving back to Stillwater from Tulsa, where my wife had a doctor's appointment, I saw a dust devil.  They're not real common, but I manage to see a few every year.  This one lasted longer than most I've seen.  It danced and swayed and seemed almost alive for about 30 seconds, maybe longer.
   My wife had never seen one.  She's heard about them, of course, but she thought they were really figments of the imagination or perhaps a tall tale.  This was her first view of these mostly harmless mini-tornadoes that pop up in dusty, dry, and usually flat areas.  She grew up in hilly Cincinnati and has hardly ever been west of I35, which more or less is like a dividing line between the hillier eastern half of Oklahoma, and the flatter plains to the west.
   I grew up in Oklahoma City, and as a kid we would chase after the dust devils that danced across playgrounds and little league baseball fields.  They seldom lasted for more than a few seconds, so often it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  Once inside a dust devil, the dirt and debris would swirl around, pelting us on all sides.  The winds were always too weak to whisk us off to Oz.  Then the experience was over before we knew it, the magic dissipated to perhaps, or perhaps not, re-form elsewhere on the playground.
   I wish I would have had my camera out to capture today's dust devil, along with the delighted surprise in Susie's voice when she witnessed one of the little miracles of nature that often pass unnoticed to most people.