Stormy Weather

My mom hated thunderstorms. My dad could sleep right through the worst of them. I have vivid memories from childhood of stormy summer days and nights at the farm. I took after my mom and was terrified if there was even a chance of bad weather. If I heard that there was a thunderstorm or tornado watch, I would be nervous the whole day.  I remember hiding in a corner by the refigerator whenever the sky looked threatening. I'm not sure why I picked that spot, but it was probably because I wanted to be close to my mom in the kitchen, but I also wanted to be in a spot where I could not see out any windows. We never went into the basement at the farm in stormy weather. There were a couple of reasons for that. First, that basement was almost more scary than any weather that could possibly come our way. Second, my dad always said that because the house was built of cement blocks, if a tornado hit, rather than blowing away, the house would collapse into the basement. No wonder I was afraid of storms!

When my Uncle Dale and my Grandma Betz lived with us, apparently Dale would go outside if it started to storm. He liked to stand on the back steps or even lay down on the lawn to watch the sky. My Grandma would holler at him to get in the house. I'm betting she even called him by his full name: Dale Arthur John Betz!

Every summer when I was a kid, our Aunt Lydia would come and stay at the farm with us for 2 weeks. (Thinking about the fact that our house was so crowded back then, I am now wondering where she slept. I bet one of my older siblings will remember.) Aunt Lydia's visits were the best. She would re-tell the same stories every year, but we never tired of them. It was also neat because she wore a wig and it was super cool to see her wig resting on top of a small table lamp when she went to sleep at night. And there was also the medicine she took. She always had pills to take and she always would put the pills in a spoon of my mom's homemade jam to swallow them. After the 2 weeks, we'd drive her back to Mason City where she lived. Her son, Kenneth and his wife, Hazel would always pick up Kentucky Fried Chicken for our dinner when we brought Aunt Lydia home. This was a huge treat to us as it was the only time we ever got KFC. I remember Aunt Lydia's house in Mason City actually had a storm shelter area built into the basement. No need to fear storms when we were there.

It never seemed to fail: every year while Aunt Lydia was staying with us, there would be one really bad storm in the middle of the night. All of us (except my dad who went right on sleeping) would be up and scared to death. Aunt Lydia would always grab her purse and have it sitting on her lap while we waited out the storm. I never understood why she did that. I thought it had something to do with her having all her pills in her purse. But if we blew away in a storm, what were the chances of a jar of homemade jam landing next to her so she could take her pills?

As I grew up, I lost a lot of my fear of storms. I think having kids made me face that fear a bit. After all, if they saw me afraid, they were bound to be scared as well. The first house that Eric and I bought backed up to an elementary school. There was a tornado siren in the school yard. When Danielle was little, she was terrified whenever they tested the siren...which was at 1 pm on the first Wednesday of every month. Once, after the siren was tested it kept rotating. There was no longer noise coming from it, but Danielle was terrified to even see it turning. She wouldn't even step outside until it was fixed a couple of days later.

Both my girls inherited my fear of storms. Evan sometimes gets scared of them, but not as bad as the girls. When we bought this house, we learned that in the late 1980's a tornado went right thru this neighborhood. I'm pretty sure we kept that a secret from the kids as long as possible. Once, not long after we moved into this house, there was a nasty storm that went through. We lost 2 trees (one of which narrowly missed hitting the house). Danielle actually seemed to become less afraid after that incident. Lauren's fear only got worse. Much like I was years earlier, she started getting scared if she heard about any storm watches and warnings. And with tv these days, we hear about watches and warnings that are so far away from us that there truly is no need for us to worry. But she still does.

Last year, just before the 4th of July, we had arrived at my in-laws cabin for the holiday. The sky grew very dark and threatening. The kids were terrified and considered hiding in a closet as there is no basement there. I took pictures (from inside) and told the kids that Grandma had just gotten to Heaven. There was no way that she was going to let God send a storm that would hurt us. Thankfully it blew over or they would never believe anything I told them again. A few weeks ago when we arrived at our new cabin in a downpour and found ourselves locked out, Lauren started crying and was very scared. Evan piped up and told her that there was no way Grandma would let a storm hurt us. It made me smile and I'm pretty sure my mom was smiling up in Heaven too. Last weekend, we heard two stories of tornados hitting places on our end of Mille Lacs over the years. We won't tell the kids those stories and I think I might say a few prayers that God puts my mom in charge of where future storms hit up there. (All 3 pictures are from that storm last summer. The lights you can see in 2 of the pictures are reflections of cabin lights, not UFO's.)

Now I actually find storms to be interesting. I love to fall asleep to the sound of rain and thunder. I do get a bit nervous if there are tornado warnings out for us. And we do go to the basement on those occasions.  A couple of nights ago there was a thunderstorm when we went to bed. Evan was sleeping right through the storm, much like my dad would have. Eric was still up, so Lauren climbed into bed with me. I told her not to worry, it was just a thunderstom, nothing severe. She told me it was easy for me to say, since I was never afraid of storms, even when I was little. She would know better if she'd ever seen me curled up hiding next to a refrigerator!