Imagine waking up to a foot of snow on the ground on Christmas morning.

Everything you need for the day is already in the house. A fridge full of food, plenty of firewood, music, movies, books, and games for entertainment. Everyone you love and want with you on Christmas morning are in their house shoes and Christmas PJ’s spritely chattering about the newfound discovery. No responsibilities on this morning required outside except for perhaps clearing the driveway but there is usually at least one person that finds that sort of thing fun. It’s a foot of fresh powder on Christmas morning. The smell of cinnamon, apples, and spice blending in the kitchen and spreading to each corner of the home. Everything outdoors covered in a perfectly snug white blanket while you and your loved ones sip hot drinks by the fire and laugh. Cozy, quaint, carefree. Near perfect if you ask me.

Now, imagine it’s the middle of June in Kansas and you wake up to a foot of white covering the ground, driveways, streets, and ditches. The windshield of the short bed Ford peppered with chips but in-tact. The forest green body dinged with marble shaped dimples and the bed nearly full to the brim with the white precipitation. There is no doubt what the substance is. You heard it pounding the tin roof for hours. You’ve been lying awake hoping and praying that your home and farm won’t be ripped to shreds. You think of the cows. ‘I knew we should have built a stronger shed for them.” You fear the cows having no shelter in this horrific onslaught. “The chicken coop! I hope the chicken coop stays together.” Thoughts like these and a thousand more swirl as you wait helplessly for the battering to end.

June 23, 1951 in El Dorado, Kansas residents experienced such a day as this. A foot of marble sized hail stones covered the ground and left shreds of destruction scattered in every direction. Gardens ripped to shreds, fruit trees splintered and sparsely leafed, and the chicken coop haggard. The crops were unseen but logically the destruction would have been catastrophic. The cows and chickens–noisy and annoyed but alive.

This Summer turned into one of the ‘Great’ floods of United States history. ‘The Great Flood of 1951″ as it’s called displaced millions from their homes and caused hundreds of millions in damages. The foot of hail was only one of the catastrophic weather anomalies. Hays, Kansas received 11 inches of rain in a span of two hours a month prior.

Many towns across Kansas experienced damage in one shape or form, but one of the two towns to receive the most damage was Manhattan. The downtown area was under eight feet of water and two people perished.

July 17, 1951-While viewing the horrific flooding from an airplane, President Harry Truman said this of the disaster, “One of the worst this country has ever suffered from water.” Over a million acres were flooded in Kansas and 926,000 acres in Missouri. Water reached the rooftops in the Kansas City Metro. Could you imagine?

We experienced a hailstorm ourselves a few days ago. About five minutes of being pepper-balled by white marbles. They looked about the size of my grandparents old Chinese Checkers board pieces and were mostly soft and harmless. The Hibiscus lost most of its petals and leaves from the Mulberry tree littered the yard, but that was the extent of the damage.

In the aftermath, I picked up one of the pure white roughly round ice balls and hurled it across the yard at the crepe myrtle base and it exploded into a million tiny pieces. I was testing if it were ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ hail. ‘Hard’ hail as you would expect is far more destructive. Thankfully, El Dorado, Kansas experienced the softer kind back in 1951.

However, something more horrific and worth mentioning happened a few years later to the town. On June 10, 1958, a F4 Tornado hit El Dorado, Kansas and thirteen people perished. There is a memorial in Graham Park remembering those that passed on that day.

You can wake up to a foot of white covering the ground on Christmas or in June. One could illicit happiness and pure joy and the other at a minimum would create a lot of work to do. Either way, we would have to keep on going. Some moments are so perfect that we may want to freeze time. Others are so drastically destructive that it seems as though life will not be normal again. Either way, we have to keep on going.

There is a song I wrote a few years back. I wrote it one day to encourage myself to keep going when it felt like on that specific day that I could not. “If there was ever a time to keep on going–it’s right now.”

Whether it’s a good time or bad. Whether it’s a magical foot of snow on Christmas or a devastating foot of hail in June. No matter the circumstances, “if there was ever a time to keep on going–it’s right now.” Good or bad. It will soon pass. It’s up to us to cherish each detail and realize that our lives are part of the greatest story anyone could ever write. As long as air fills these lungs, passion pumps in these veins, and ideas form in my mind I am alive. My days–grateful am I.

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The (1-3) Kansas St Wildcats are located in Manhattan, Kansas. While the downtown area isn’t currently underwater, my prediction for the team to have a 10-2 season is out the window. This is a different sort of catastrophe. Inside the locker room, they are looking at the foot of hail that has battered them in the first third of the season. The hail stones have created lots of work to do and problems to solve. Each is looking to the other wondering when the storm will end. “When will we win again?”

Winning will always be the goal, but it can’t be the only goal. Too many times in life, we will do everything right to prepare for the future only to have the future throw something funky our way like waking up to a foot of hail or losing to Army at home in football and waking up 1-3. It will feel unwarranted, unjust, and unnecessary but regardless, you have to keep on going.

UCF comes to Manhattan this week looking to get to 4-0. “If there was ever a time to keep on going” (Wildcats)”–it’s right now.” Christmas morning could be around the corner. To give up now would be to squander the gifts entrusted to us, to hide our lamp under a bush would serve no positive purpose, and to bury our Talent in the field will bring no reward. Whether it’s a foot of snow on Christmas or a foot of hail in Kansas, we humans are a joyful resilient bunch. We simply have to keep on going.

“We got to stay inspired/ got to stay wired/ got to stay locked in/ got to stay creatin’/ Gotta stay focused/ Gotta stay on task/ AND keep that TV off and keep on readin’ your ass off” – W. C. E.

• More on weird Hail events per Christopher Burt Wunderground.com (weather underground blog 7/8/13)
  • July 3, 2013, Santa Rosa, NM: Up to a foot of hail accumulated. Snowplows had to clear the streets
  • June 25, 2013, a rare and unprecedented hailstorm struck Singapore.
  • June 3, 1959, Seldon, Kansas left an 18″ deep accumulation of hail over a 54 square mile area
  • August 13, 2004, Clayton, New Mexico. A foot of hail accumulated and then it was washed away by the 5″ of rainfall that fell directly after. Enormous piles of hail filled the ditches and caused all sorts of temporary problems.

Find the Humor and Keep on Movin’

Whit W.