Among the phenomena of my youth I miss in the twilight of my
life are the sudden storms of the Midwest that came from nowhere
and raged from a few minutes to many hours.
They were dramatic to witness. One moment the sky was blue and
cloudless and in no time at all, a fork of lightning arched across
the horizon and the rain swept slantingly along the streets and
buildings.
Among the phenomena of my youth I miss in the twilight of my life are the sudden storms of the Midwest that came from nowhere and raged from a few minutes to many hours.
They were dramatic to witness. One moment the sky was blue and cloudless and in no time at all, a fork of lightning arched across the horizon and the rain swept slantingly along the streets and buildings.
They began with intensity and increased as though a dial had been turned to high. It did no good to run unless shelter was immediately at hand because it drenched you so completely in the first seconds that you could not get wetter if you stayed out in it for hours.
To children a storm could be very frightening unless they were viewing it with adults from inside a house or store. But even then, unless the claps of thunder and bolts of lightning were very close, it was exciting to see the intensity of the rain and how it knocked leaves from trees or flattened the grass with the wind that accompanied it.
As schoolboys, most of us on our block ventured out with flashlights and tin cans when darkness fell after a heavy rain. We walked quietly onto the grass, then suddenly shone our light on the ground. Exposed were dozens of night crawlers that had left their rain-filled underground burrows. Young hands grabbed and thrust them into cans to be sold to the bait store the next day.
Camping became a popular summer pastime after one’s age hit two digits. My twin brothers, Jim and Johnnie Adams, and I hiked outside of town carrying our gear until we found a good spot by a stream. The first time we threw everything down and ran to the stream to swim. Within 20 minutes a storm hit and soaked everything, and we had a miserable night in wet blankets.
It taught us a lesson. After that we set up the tent first thing, stored all our gear inside and dug a moat around it to carry off rain. I vividly recall a night when a cannonade of thunder awakened us. Five boys sat bolt upright in their blankets while the booming and the lightning, flashing off and on like Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, and the rain drumming on the tent kept us awake for hours.
A more pleasant experience happened at 18 when my girlfriend and I went on a picnic in the country. We were returning to town when another storm began and rained so fiercely that it obscured the road. I pulled over and for a half-hour it pounded the swimming windshield. When the sun reappeared, its rays made diamonds of every raindrop in the flowers and grass.
My most memorable storm happened on the John P. Reiss when I was going up to Lake Superior for the first time. It was late May of 1953 and it struck at night. It was immediately apparent that it was unlike anything we had ever seen before. We deckhands moved through an endless world of wind, rain and cold to batten down the hatches. The Henry J. Steinbrenner sank that night in 100 fathoms off Isle Royale, and 12 of her 31 member crew died. Four froze to death in the lifeboats before help arrived.
Although I miss the storms, I don’t wish for one here. It would probably knock out all power immediately and find a number of holes in my roof.
