On December 14, 1999 my 62-year-old husband Arnold had been repairing a check sorting  machine  at  The Bank, NA  in  McAlester,  Oklahoma.   Because  of  building construction in the area he started to take a short cut to his car. As he was returning to the car with his tool case in hand, a very strong wind was blowing.  Suddenly a voice  in  his  head  urged  him  to  turn  quickly  and  go  the  opposite direction. He immediately obeyed.  Two or three seconds later a  large, heavy piece of fiberboard about 3.5' X 3.5' was blown off a four story building and crashed down where he would have stepped prior to the warning.

Arnold is convinced he would have been killed if he had been struck by the force of this projectile.  At the least, he would have been severely injured, which would have been so tragic since he had just endured a very complex, risky brain surgery in August to remove a large tumor.  The surgery had been a complete success and he had made a remarkably fast recovery.  Surely his GUARDIAN ANGEL WAS ON DUTY that day protecting him and directing his path.

Several years ago Arnold was out running in a housing addition called Norris Hills in Ada.  He noticed that the sky was turning green and the clouds were looking angry.   Suddenly, a strong blast of cold air hit him.  Fearful, he raced back up the hill toward home and later that day heard the house he had been standing by was hit by a tornado and later had to be demolished. On other runs he has come dangerously close to being struck by lightening as it hit very close to him.

In 1969 Arnold had another close encounter with a tornado outbreak when driving up highway 75 from Dallas to Ada.  As he neared Sherman, TX it began looking very threatening in the skies to the south and west.  He looked into the rearview mirror and was horrified to see a long rope tornado chasing him up the highway.  He was bombarded by a huge hail storm about that time.  The hail was about a foot deep as he tried to reach a bridge underpass.  He finally pulled under the bridge as the tornado turned east.  Then a few minutes later he spotted a large, black wedge shaped tornado ahead going from the west to the east.  Luckily, it missed him too.  Arnold told me he learned an important lesson from that experience.  Do not drive into threatening weather and keep the car radio on in bad weather.

Another time he was driving down the highway in Oklahoma and no other cars were around.  Suddenly out of nowhere the driver's side window shattered into a thousand pieces.  Startled, he fought to stay on the road.  Finally he pulled over to assess the damage.  He figured it had been broken by a shell, probably from a long distance, but no shell every turned up in the car.  It was a frightening experience.  It remains a mystery.

The most recent close call was on November 4, 2006.  Arnold was out running one of his usual routes around Wintersmith Park in Ada, usually one of the safest places in our state.  As he approached the path to the Callixylon petrified tree on the east road around the park a gun shot rang out from a rifle or hand gun about 200 to 300 feet up the path.  He said it was not from a shot gun.  Soon after, he heard the sound of the shell going through the leaves near him.  He doesn't believe anyone was trying to shoot him.  He guessed it was a hunter who was unaware of the danger of shooting a gun toward a road in town in a populated area.  It was way too close for comfort.  Arnold has run in this park hundreds of times and still does with no other mishaps.  We think is was just a freak occurrence and it will never happen again.  By relating this story, we certainly don't want to scare anyone away from our beautiful park.

I think it is obvious to all who have read these stories that Arnold's Guardian Angel is still on Duty protecting him.  Thank God for that!