Hold Onto Me"What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?"Matthew 8:27b

When I was about nine or ten years old, I was on a Little League baseball team in Richmond. We played most of our games in the West End at Maybeury Elementary School's field, just off Patterson Avenue. Our coach was an enormous man named Coach Hecht, as wide as he was tall. He loved kids and he loved baseball. And we loved him; he had a big voice and a big personality and he took his role as a coach and a mentor quite seriously.One summer afternoon we were playing a game, and I was playing left field, with the school behind me and a wooded area behind and to the right of me. In front of me, behind the first base line and the bleachers, was a small, dark green-painted cinderblock building with a flat roof where hot dogs and candy were sold.  I was there in the outfield when a severe storm began to move into the area. The sky darkened and the wind began to blow, leading us all to think there must be a thunderstorm on its way. Yet suddenly, the wind became very strong and very, very loud. The dirt in the infield began to blow and then rose into a swirling, dense orange curtain of sandy soil in front of me. I remember I could not hear anything except for the roar of the wind through the trees. I tried to run towards the dugout, but could not see where to go. I could not see or hear any other person, including my parents. I just froze and I stood there and tried to figure out where to go and what to do.