It’s Iowa springtime! Today was the first real round of thunderstorms tracking across the state. I have to say that this is my favorite time of year. Not because the birds are singing and the grass is turning green. Not because springtime represents rebirth. This is my favorite time of year because I LOVE STORMS!
As a child I was scared to death of thunder, lightening and especially TORNADO’s!!! Maybe it was from watching The Wizard of Oz every year… Probably more because growing up in southwest Iowa in the 1960’s I had access to what was then a rarity… I was able to watch television from Omaha Nebraska stations or Des Moines stations. We had one of those TV antenna’s with a rotor. Turn the dial to West and viola! Omaha stations. To the East, Des Moines stations.
Big deal you say? When spring storms begin to roll into western Iowa, I watched KMTV Channel 3 as strorms headed my way… then as it would begin to blow into my hometown, I would switch the antenna back to KCCI Channel 8 in Des Moines.
The shorter the time between the flash of lightening and the clap of thunder, the straighter I sat. The smell of heavy rain beating the ground, the sounds of hail hitting the windows and the vibrations of a close lightening strike would send me to the center of the house… Many times in tears. My brother would laugh at me. My mother always assuring me that the storm was moving to the north or south. She ended up always right.
I can’t recall when my feelings changed from fear to intrigue, but I do know that it happened overnight. Today as I drove home from work, a flash of lightening would appear and I would instantly began to count… one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three…. until I would hear the sound of thunder.
