Editor's Note: The late Nick Gholson, sports editor for the Times Record News, recalled his memories of Terrible Tuesday in a column he wrote in 1979, when he was news editor. 

Knowing, but not knowing. Wanting to know more -- but afraid to find out.

At 6:15 p.m. on April 10, 1979, while many friends were fighting to survive the killer tornado, I was some 150 miles away.

I was in Arlington when the killer storm without pity blazed its destructive trail across much of Wichita Falls.

In some ways, I felt left out. I can't tell stories of huge black clouds and deafening, freight train-like noises.

But I understand the helplessness I felt being two hours away and knowing, yet not knowing.

Here's my memory of Terrible Tuesday.

After hearing of the Vernon tornado, I called home. It was just past 6 p.m.

"There's a tornado down on the ground in Wichita Falls," my wife told me in a voice which relayed concern, but not panic.

"The lights are flickering off and on, the sirens are going and the TV just went off," she continued. "And it's really dark outside."

"Don't worry," I said, being a veteran of two other twisters which now look like church picnics compared to the killer. "Tornadoes always hit the north part of town, out by the base. You don't have to worry because one will never touch down in our part of town (Collins Street)," I assured her.

I have felt guilty about that ever since. But I, like many Wichitans, had become very apathetic toward sirens and tornado warnings.

After assuring my wife there was no danger of tornadoes in our section of Wichita Falls, I headed to Arlington Stadium for the Rangers' home opener. But I prayed as I went.

Two hours later I was headed back home. I got a call in the press box telling me that a devastating tornado had hit Wichita Falls. I heard Al Oliver's second home run while in the Arlington Stadium parking lot, running for my car.

The first report was that it leveled Sikes Senter, killing seven and leaving hundreds more trapped inside. "What about Collins Street?" I demanded of the radio weatherman. He didn't answer.

The radio had reported that U.S. 287 into Wichita Falls was closed because of "overturned vehicles." But I was getting in some way.

I prayed again. Seconds seemed like hours. Two hours seemed like an eternity. I wanted to know, but I was afraid to find out.

Decatur, Bowie, Henrietta. They all came so slowly. But finally, I was back home.

It was like a ghost town.

Landmarks I had always taken for granted -- they were gone. And the ones that did manage to escape the killer's blows were erased by the heavy darkness that hung over a lightless and seemingly lifeless city.

"It's gone," I thought of the city I had known and loved for all of my 32 years.

"And they're gone." I cried as I thought of my wife and two children, a 3-year-old son and a 3-month-old daughter.

I prayed again.

God and I talked a lot that night. He's a good listener, although it's usually when I'm in the biggest trouble that I talk to him the most.

While we talked, I stared out at the mass of twisted metal, the overturned 18-wheelers and the bashed-in automobiles which had driven many to their graves.

I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see Rod Serling step out of the fog and tell me I was in the Twilight Zone.

The darkness had hidden the worst of the killer's destruction from me. It would be several hours later -- after a restless night of listening to the chop-chop-chop of the helicopters and the squealing of sirens -- before I would see the real massacre.

I had always thought I could find my way around this city blindfolded, but the killer had blown away most of the road signs, turning my hometown into a stranger and leaving me with a sense of amnesia.

But the closer I got to this stranger's heart, the more it all came back to me. The lightless city was not lifeless after all. The killer had left witnesses.

Signs now stood upright, like soldiers proud to have survived the war. Some houses looked untouched. Candles flickered in their windows.

"Light means life," I told myself.

Cars, unlike the battered ones I had seen minutes before, crept along the expressway whose colorless traffic lights had been snuffed out by the killer.

I began to get high -- high on optimism. The closer I got, the more assurance I had that my family had also survived.

As I turned into my driveway, I noticed a small candle glowing through the window.

"Light means life."

I rushed through the front door to see my wife crying. Her tears were mixed with the joy of knowing that we had survived the killer's rampage and the sadness of knowing many others hadn't.

My two children were snug in their beds, not realizing what had taken place five hours earlier and less than a mile away.

I prayed again, but this time for a different reason.

"Thank you, Lord," I started.

Sports Editor Nick Gholson passed away in October 2013.