- Jun 5, 2020
- 1,412
- 653
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Married
My family had a half a house placed on our property in Cuba NY that my father wanted to build into a simple cabin. My parents and relations also together had built for our collective families an acre pond and that was situated right behind the house and my cousins even put in a dock with diving board.
My father had finished installing a pump that summer outlining the area with concrete blocks for easier access. He then installed toilet, and sink in a small cut out area meant for these addition. Lastly he set in a small wooden stove so my mom could heat water and cook soup. Then he covered the side with tarp intending to build the remaining space next summer.
Next summer came as well as a long weekend and he packed plywood and two by fours to start the framing of that future cabin and second half of the roof onto top of our Chevy Roadmaster® station wagon by putting down the middle seats. Then we four kids climbed into the back end, girls on one side of these items and boys on the other and dog with the boys. We headed south down what was then route sixteen before the 400 went in. The day was hot but the back end was down because stuff hung out that way and the wind coming through the back cooled us as long as we were moving.
When we reached the “farm” as we called it we pulled in and all piled out. Then dad and my two brothers pulled out the boards while mom and us, girls took the food and bags into the cabin. Anne was sent up with the watermelon and told to place it out in the pond. Soon as Sue and I dropped our things we begged our mom to let us go swimming. My mom and dad certainly didn’t need a seven year old or ten year old girl under foot as my dad erected the other side of that building though my older brothers were kept for running errands. So she agreed with “stay out of your father’s way till we call you”.
Still we had to wait for Anne to return so we tore off our shorts and tees and grabbed towels. My sister came in moments later and was told she was watching us. She complained and tried to get out of it but in the end Anne brought up a book and pretended to as she read instead. She positioned herself on top of the mound surrounding the pond behind the large tent that we girls would sleep in, which sat beside a small pup tent for the boys, there we left our towels.
Smokey, our border-collie shepherd mixed dog, came up to join us in the water after a while. All three of us had been out in that pond all morning swimming, playing Marco-polo with our dog, and finding the cold spot to cool off as those dog days settled in and the mercury soared. Smokey left the water and lay down next to Anne as the morning went on. I grew tired of swimming too and settled down into an inter-tube floating on my back and looking up to the pale clear blue sky that had small thin wispy clouds moving slowly overhead .
I’m not certain how long I’d floated watching the slow moving high white clouds as almond colored clouds began to move in. These thin wispy brown clouds replaced the thin wispy white ones swiftly invading my mostly clear sky. They seemed to be dancing swirling about as I watched them a bit enjoying their play. Then those swirls became better defined circles so I asked my sister, “Sue, what does it mean when clouds swirl around in circles?”
“It means there is a tornado nearby, why?” she asked only half listening.
“Because they are!” I exclaimed half hoping she was teasing me. I found out she wasn’t as she looked up and scream, “Tornado!”
Anne looked up from her book and started yelling in hysterics, “get out of the pond, get out of the pond, mom there a tornado coming, I told you both to get out of the pond!” or something like that. She didn’t have to say anything anyway and certainly didn’t have to repeat herself. Sue and I started out as soon as Sue announced what it was and screaming at us wasn’t getting us out of the pond any faster. We came out as fast as we could!
My mom was already running up the hill as we ran for our towels. Anne had run off along the other side of the pond and at that time as if forgetting us after scolding so fiercely, I wasn’t certain what she was doing. Our mom when she reached the top of the hill screamed, “Anne, no, get away from the pond.”
Both of us turned to see what was the problem was and why our mom was so upset. We also wondered why Anne would head into the pond after yelling us to get out. That’s when we saw her heading for the watermelon. As a kid I thought saving our watermelon wise but said nothing aloud. That was good because I soon enough found out my mom was right!
Anne, of course, ignored her and kept running so my mom ran after her. Being long legged she covered the distance faster even though Ann had a good head start. She grabbed Anne when she reached her just before Anne reached into that pond to grab our watermelon.
At that same second lightning struck the center of the pond as if by cue. It struck like heat lightening from a mostly blue sky with those thin brown mostly harmless circling clouds. Every hair on my body, even ones I didn’t know till that moment I had, stood on end as that nearby charge filled the air around us.
It created waves that spread out like what happens when we throw a pebble in, only this was bigger. It made a huge cyclic wave of blue like glass that fanned out until it touched the sides of the pond lapping at the watermelon harmlessly and then our pond faded back to normal. Anne however, my mom grumbled as she came toward us, wouldn’t be alive had she grabbed that watermelon when that lightning struck, her words scaring all of us!
Sue and I however hadn’t left the top of the hill but were trying to get Smoky down. She was fighting us because of her great fear. We tried to hold on but just as my mom caught Anne saving her life, smoky became ballistic because of the lightning strike and broke free. She raced around the two tents and jumped into the big one stopping us in our tracks. We then started toward her but my mom words slowed us and the wind tugged at us trying to lift us off the ground. Then the big tent, dog and all, was torn from the ground and into the air about the same time.
If Smokey hadn’t weighted the tent down as the wind tried to steal it we probably would have lost tent and dog. Yet she did and the tent flew low enough to catch the barbwire fence rather than be hulled off into the wind like the wicked witch of the west.
It did rip that tent, though our dog forcing herself out certainly increased those rips but it was still salvageable. We had tried to help her of course following her and the tent and trying to find the door but she fell out and took off again on the run. “George, get Smoky,” my sister yelled as our dog headed around the Road-master® straight for him.
He and Paul both dropped the board they were bringing my dad to make chase. Smokey rounded the car likely thinking to head back up the hill but Sue and I were coming around the fence right after her. So seeing no clear line of escape she turned and darted under the car instead!
We bent down hoping to get her back out but then Mom was screaming at us and Dad yelling for us to leave the dog and get inside. I turned and saw why she was so upset and it seemed like the creature that terrorized me from Disney’s Fantasia’s, Night On Bald Mountain scene, that demon, was descending down upon us. A shadow very like it flowed swiftly and sinisterly down upon us while we were preoccupied by the dog’s antics.
So too had the true storm that those wispy brown clouds and sudden lightening had forewarned us was coming. It came on huge like a billowing black smoke of Titans at war. It filled one end of the sky blanketing that end in pitch while on the other end of the sky where I had been pointed before was still blue with thin brown clouds swirling about. It was a clear line that was barreling down on us as we had our backs turned, so worried for our dog. It was surreal as if you turned back around it wouldn’t come, only the wind said differently.
My mom grabbed me and Sue because the wind could blow us away like the tent. My brothers grabbed Anne and the three of them forced their way through the wind as I more than Sue flew upward only to be dragged back by my mom. “What about Dad?” one of my siblings yelled as we came through the door and Paul, the oldest, dragged it shut behind us.
“Your father can take care of himself!” my mom scolded back. They yelled because the wind made it hard to hear anything. She directed us to the only partially enclosed room, the bathroom. It had a blue tarp enclosing it but the larger tarp covering the open side of the house was already down because of the construction. As we fled behind that smaller tarp as the wind dragged and tugged at it so that it protected almost nothing.
So when the tug of war with the tarp ended in the tarp flying off in the wind and the wind roaring victoriously my mom then moved us again carefully to the back far corner of the house from the door that flank the side with the bathroom and stove. My Dad by now had managed to get one piece of plywood hammered into that end saving what was left of the badly damaged stove pipe from being torn out completely. It reduced the wind slightly and made it easier to see outside, especially when he finished hammering it in and started putting in the next board.
The wind still tugged at us as we clung together tightly. I know I was on my mom’s lap being the youngest. Perhaps that was why at least to me the wind wasn’t as strong now. My siblings all were trying to get onto her lap as well so in a way they too protected me from the wind though I do think that was their attempt. So I had a chance after a while to look out through the gradually decreasing hole in the plywood wall as my Dad worked erecting.
I saw his hat fly off early on and watched it memorized by its flight. It danced about like the clouds in a weird nonviolent manner. It was if my dad would just turn and wait, he’d catch it. Of course that was nonsense as it dashed away from him again and across the street.
“The Apple Tree,” my brothers cried out. Looking toward the orchard I watched in shock a tree disappear down the side of the hill and when I turned back to find my dad’s hat, it was gone. In its place were bolts of lightning snaking downward like bony witches hands and clawing at the grass trying to pull it too away into to the hungry storm.
The evergreen sentinels stood guard over my grandpa’s home and not one miraculously got struck even with the lightening falling down around them. Maybe the house’s lighting rods protected them as well. I watched all these things in fascination mostly unaware of the great danger we all were in.
Somewhere during this time my Dad put the last board up blocking all visions of the storm from us all together. Soon afterward he came in, throwing his tools aside and coming over to us. I switched laps climbing into his as my older sister Sue took my spot on my mom’s lap. After that, all we could do is cuddle and wait in near perfect darkness. Day would return briefly in the flashes of lighting and the wind outside still roared like a mythological monster, yet even through all, I dozed off.
I awoke to silence and sun shining. We stepped out of that house to find limbs of trees and other materials not tied down strong enough littering our field out to the road and beyond. The rest of the day was spent cleaning things up. We stopped partway in to eat lunch and that watermelon tasted extra special for staying out and braving that storm.
Smoky though never left the underside of the car. We put out food, water and called to her even playing with her balls but she stubbornly remained right there. So as the first day of our long waited four day weekend started fading my parents, to much grumbling, said we had to go home.
We packed up, taking down the tents and all piled into the car. We kids worried Smoky would stay there or get run over but as the last person started into the car, out she popped and in she came and off we drove for home.
My father had finished installing a pump that summer outlining the area with concrete blocks for easier access. He then installed toilet, and sink in a small cut out area meant for these addition. Lastly he set in a small wooden stove so my mom could heat water and cook soup. Then he covered the side with tarp intending to build the remaining space next summer.
Next summer came as well as a long weekend and he packed plywood and two by fours to start the framing of that future cabin and second half of the roof onto top of our Chevy Roadmaster® station wagon by putting down the middle seats. Then we four kids climbed into the back end, girls on one side of these items and boys on the other and dog with the boys. We headed south down what was then route sixteen before the 400 went in. The day was hot but the back end was down because stuff hung out that way and the wind coming through the back cooled us as long as we were moving.
When we reached the “farm” as we called it we pulled in and all piled out. Then dad and my two brothers pulled out the boards while mom and us, girls took the food and bags into the cabin. Anne was sent up with the watermelon and told to place it out in the pond. Soon as Sue and I dropped our things we begged our mom to let us go swimming. My mom and dad certainly didn’t need a seven year old or ten year old girl under foot as my dad erected the other side of that building though my older brothers were kept for running errands. So she agreed with “stay out of your father’s way till we call you”.
Still we had to wait for Anne to return so we tore off our shorts and tees and grabbed towels. My sister came in moments later and was told she was watching us. She complained and tried to get out of it but in the end Anne brought up a book and pretended to as she read instead. She positioned herself on top of the mound surrounding the pond behind the large tent that we girls would sleep in, which sat beside a small pup tent for the boys, there we left our towels.
Smokey, our border-collie shepherd mixed dog, came up to join us in the water after a while. All three of us had been out in that pond all morning swimming, playing Marco-polo with our dog, and finding the cold spot to cool off as those dog days settled in and the mercury soared. Smokey left the water and lay down next to Anne as the morning went on. I grew tired of swimming too and settled down into an inter-tube floating on my back and looking up to the pale clear blue sky that had small thin wispy clouds moving slowly overhead .
I’m not certain how long I’d floated watching the slow moving high white clouds as almond colored clouds began to move in. These thin wispy brown clouds replaced the thin wispy white ones swiftly invading my mostly clear sky. They seemed to be dancing swirling about as I watched them a bit enjoying their play. Then those swirls became better defined circles so I asked my sister, “Sue, what does it mean when clouds swirl around in circles?”
“It means there is a tornado nearby, why?” she asked only half listening.
“Because they are!” I exclaimed half hoping she was teasing me. I found out she wasn’t as she looked up and scream, “Tornado!”
Anne looked up from her book and started yelling in hysterics, “get out of the pond, get out of the pond, mom there a tornado coming, I told you both to get out of the pond!” or something like that. She didn’t have to say anything anyway and certainly didn’t have to repeat herself. Sue and I started out as soon as Sue announced what it was and screaming at us wasn’t getting us out of the pond any faster. We came out as fast as we could!
My mom was already running up the hill as we ran for our towels. Anne had run off along the other side of the pond and at that time as if forgetting us after scolding so fiercely, I wasn’t certain what she was doing. Our mom when she reached the top of the hill screamed, “Anne, no, get away from the pond.”
Both of us turned to see what was the problem was and why our mom was so upset. We also wondered why Anne would head into the pond after yelling us to get out. That’s when we saw her heading for the watermelon. As a kid I thought saving our watermelon wise but said nothing aloud. That was good because I soon enough found out my mom was right!
Anne, of course, ignored her and kept running so my mom ran after her. Being long legged she covered the distance faster even though Ann had a good head start. She grabbed Anne when she reached her just before Anne reached into that pond to grab our watermelon.
At that same second lightning struck the center of the pond as if by cue. It struck like heat lightening from a mostly blue sky with those thin brown mostly harmless circling clouds. Every hair on my body, even ones I didn’t know till that moment I had, stood on end as that nearby charge filled the air around us.
It created waves that spread out like what happens when we throw a pebble in, only this was bigger. It made a huge cyclic wave of blue like glass that fanned out until it touched the sides of the pond lapping at the watermelon harmlessly and then our pond faded back to normal. Anne however, my mom grumbled as she came toward us, wouldn’t be alive had she grabbed that watermelon when that lightning struck, her words scaring all of us!
Sue and I however hadn’t left the top of the hill but were trying to get Smoky down. She was fighting us because of her great fear. We tried to hold on but just as my mom caught Anne saving her life, smoky became ballistic because of the lightning strike and broke free. She raced around the two tents and jumped into the big one stopping us in our tracks. We then started toward her but my mom words slowed us and the wind tugged at us trying to lift us off the ground. Then the big tent, dog and all, was torn from the ground and into the air about the same time.
If Smokey hadn’t weighted the tent down as the wind tried to steal it we probably would have lost tent and dog. Yet she did and the tent flew low enough to catch the barbwire fence rather than be hulled off into the wind like the wicked witch of the west.
It did rip that tent, though our dog forcing herself out certainly increased those rips but it was still salvageable. We had tried to help her of course following her and the tent and trying to find the door but she fell out and took off again on the run. “George, get Smoky,” my sister yelled as our dog headed around the Road-master® straight for him.
He and Paul both dropped the board they were bringing my dad to make chase. Smokey rounded the car likely thinking to head back up the hill but Sue and I were coming around the fence right after her. So seeing no clear line of escape she turned and darted under the car instead!
We bent down hoping to get her back out but then Mom was screaming at us and Dad yelling for us to leave the dog and get inside. I turned and saw why she was so upset and it seemed like the creature that terrorized me from Disney’s Fantasia’s, Night On Bald Mountain scene, that demon, was descending down upon us. A shadow very like it flowed swiftly and sinisterly down upon us while we were preoccupied by the dog’s antics.
So too had the true storm that those wispy brown clouds and sudden lightening had forewarned us was coming. It came on huge like a billowing black smoke of Titans at war. It filled one end of the sky blanketing that end in pitch while on the other end of the sky where I had been pointed before was still blue with thin brown clouds swirling about. It was a clear line that was barreling down on us as we had our backs turned, so worried for our dog. It was surreal as if you turned back around it wouldn’t come, only the wind said differently.
My mom grabbed me and Sue because the wind could blow us away like the tent. My brothers grabbed Anne and the three of them forced their way through the wind as I more than Sue flew upward only to be dragged back by my mom. “What about Dad?” one of my siblings yelled as we came through the door and Paul, the oldest, dragged it shut behind us.
“Your father can take care of himself!” my mom scolded back. They yelled because the wind made it hard to hear anything. She directed us to the only partially enclosed room, the bathroom. It had a blue tarp enclosing it but the larger tarp covering the open side of the house was already down because of the construction. As we fled behind that smaller tarp as the wind dragged and tugged at it so that it protected almost nothing.
So when the tug of war with the tarp ended in the tarp flying off in the wind and the wind roaring victoriously my mom then moved us again carefully to the back far corner of the house from the door that flank the side with the bathroom and stove. My Dad by now had managed to get one piece of plywood hammered into that end saving what was left of the badly damaged stove pipe from being torn out completely. It reduced the wind slightly and made it easier to see outside, especially when he finished hammering it in and started putting in the next board.
The wind still tugged at us as we clung together tightly. I know I was on my mom’s lap being the youngest. Perhaps that was why at least to me the wind wasn’t as strong now. My siblings all were trying to get onto her lap as well so in a way they too protected me from the wind though I do think that was their attempt. So I had a chance after a while to look out through the gradually decreasing hole in the plywood wall as my Dad worked erecting.
I saw his hat fly off early on and watched it memorized by its flight. It danced about like the clouds in a weird nonviolent manner. It was if my dad would just turn and wait, he’d catch it. Of course that was nonsense as it dashed away from him again and across the street.
“The Apple Tree,” my brothers cried out. Looking toward the orchard I watched in shock a tree disappear down the side of the hill and when I turned back to find my dad’s hat, it was gone. In its place were bolts of lightning snaking downward like bony witches hands and clawing at the grass trying to pull it too away into to the hungry storm.
The evergreen sentinels stood guard over my grandpa’s home and not one miraculously got struck even with the lightening falling down around them. Maybe the house’s lighting rods protected them as well. I watched all these things in fascination mostly unaware of the great danger we all were in.
Somewhere during this time my Dad put the last board up blocking all visions of the storm from us all together. Soon afterward he came in, throwing his tools aside and coming over to us. I switched laps climbing into his as my older sister Sue took my spot on my mom’s lap. After that, all we could do is cuddle and wait in near perfect darkness. Day would return briefly in the flashes of lighting and the wind outside still roared like a mythological monster, yet even through all, I dozed off.
I awoke to silence and sun shining. We stepped out of that house to find limbs of trees and other materials not tied down strong enough littering our field out to the road and beyond. The rest of the day was spent cleaning things up. We stopped partway in to eat lunch and that watermelon tasted extra special for staying out and braving that storm.
Smoky though never left the underside of the car. We put out food, water and called to her even playing with her balls but she stubbornly remained right there. So as the first day of our long waited four day weekend started fading my parents, to much grumbling, said we had to go home.
We packed up, taking down the tents and all piled into the car. We kids worried Smoky would stay there or get run over but as the last person started into the car, out she popped and in she came and off we drove for home.
