On the other hand, I love a summer thunderstorm. And we’re in prime season.
As I came into Springfield from the south Wednesday, wrath of God’s clouds were gathering overhead like dust storms in a Brendan Fraser-franchised “Mummy” movie.
It was serious enough that I thought of checking whether Sesame Street was being brought us that day by the word “ominous.”
Rain hadn’t come in any quantities when I passed the Meijer store.
But the streets were a little damp, and as I rounded the corner at Ferncliff Cemetery, I was reminded that yet another car had punched yet another hole in the same section of iron fence cars have mistaken for an alternate entrance.
I’d actually passed by the day before, when a good citizen was urging people to slow down to keep someone from running into the car that had run through the fence.
About that time, the reporter in me wondered whether if there’s a story about there about a family of welders who have been kept in business for generations building replacement sections of the fence.
Although I don’t know what the humidity was, when I plopped down on our front porch swing, the two thin letters we’d wedged in the mail slot for pickup were drooping like a cigarette on a loose lip of a drummer who, with hands full, was trying to jokey it to keep the rising smoke from going directly into his eye.
And there were, of course, the sound of the rain.
Later on, the thunder would roar like a dumpster being slammed down and dragged across the ground at 6 a.m. compliments of a hydraulic lift. But the early kinder, gentler rumblings brought to mind the girls who lived two doors down years ago.
Their explanation of cause thunder have made me wonder what a Weather Channel graphic showing God bowling over the Great Plains might look like — and whether theologians have pondered the trinitarian nature of the three holes the standard 16-pounder.
The spattering of initial drops on leaves brought to mind that scene in “Saving Private Ryan” when the same sound gives way to the sound of sporadic gunfire as Tom Hanks leads his soldiers toward danger.
As the intensity picked up, it sounded almost like the excited applause of a crowd that had just seen a clean winner hit on the run from the baseline at Wimbledon.
Soon, a monsoon rain, was falling as straight from the sky as the cascades out of the second story gutters of our neighbor’s house. I don’t recall seeing drops bounce up off the pavement as though it had been shot up from a pipe below.
But that tends to be more visible during storms backlit by brilliant sunshine on days when the preheated pavement steams after the rain stops.
Wednesday was, by contrast, nearly chilly as the torrents cooled the air, and the spray wet the pad of our porch swing.
At the edge of our porch, a hummingbird darted in and out of our feeder, and I worried as it flitted away whether it might get TKOed by a raindrop or ball of hail were that to come.
My thoughts also flew up into the catalpa tree across the street where a mated pair of hawks and at least two now fair size offspring had been squabbling the previous day.
Once a farm girl, my wife was initially excited about the predator’s presence, and we were hawkeyed as we identified a nesting tree across the street from the catalpa, where the birds tend to feed on their prey, and then looked for pellets that kept us up to date with what was on the hawk family menu.
Like hawk leavings, which turn from an iridescent to a more faded white over time, my wife’s excitement about the hawks has faded as her longing to see robins and other birds in our yard has grown.
My late father-in-law also came to mind. I still remember laughing the first time I heard him call Wednesday’s style of thunderstorm a “goose-drowner” and a “gully-washer.” There have been a lot of storms, and a lot of storm water has passed under bridges since then.
And while we’re on farmers, I’ll remind regular readers of the paper that Wednesday morning’s edition carried a story about farmers wanting a little more rain to help their corn crops grow.
Which brings me to a joke I’ve composed and will dedicate to one of my first editors, Dan Hopwood, whom I worked with at the Madison Press, and who had covered more weather-related farm stories than any person should.
So, Dan, wherever you are:
When do critical care nurses know it’s time to discontinue life support for farmers?
The moment they stop complaining about the weather.
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