This is Home, Part 9 - Missouri spring, spring rains, a Rainy Day, lightning makes a call, tornados, when the wind is green

This is part 9 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.

In the section on tornados, she refers to one that hit Moberly. The actual date for the tornado strike was July 4, 1995 (which matches what she said, a year or two before 1997, on the 4th of July).



Missouri spring

The whole year was interesting back home because there was always something to look forward to with each season. In spring everything was new and growing. The grass, the flowers, the baby animals. The spring showers really did make the grass and flowers grow, just like the song says. The lilacs bloomed and the next month the roses. The bridal wreath bloomed. It looked like a big snowball with all the white blossoms all over the branches and the fact that the branches all drooped.

Mom had made two flower beds -- one large rectangular one and one large round one. They were near to the honeysuckle on the end of the little porch, but nearer the three cedar trees. They could be seen from the road. She planted different kinds of flowers so they always looked beautiful.

Mom had a knack with flowers and with everything else she tried. She had different kinds of house plants inside. My favorite was the Boston fern.

I loved the old washing machine that she had taken everything off of and painted red. It was made of wood. She planted different kinds of moss in it. Some of the flowers were double. It set in the front yard near the well and between two cement walks.

You haven't lived until you have experienced a Missouri thunderstorm. The crack of the thunder is so loud it sounds like a tree trunk is being split in two right beside you.

I used to be afraid of it when I was little. The North bedroom felt very far away from the kitchen where Mom was working. I ran and jumped in Charley's bed and pulled the covers over my head.

But afterwards, there was a wonderful smell of freshness outside and a beautiful rainbow. Mom said the rainbow showed that God remembered his promise to never again destroy the Earth with water.

She looked forward to the birds coming back again. The wren, the blue bird, the robin, and the cardinal. She thought they made things cheerful. They didn't really stay around the yard much. Sometimes, one would sit on the fence in the back yard for a few minutes.

The wren seemed to get busy building her nest. We would see her fly by with something in her bill for the nest.

Anyway, we had the woods just above the Missouri henhouse.

Mom used to take us to the woods sometimes. We had picnics there and Mom used to make sounds like the different birds. They would answer and fly to a nearby tree. She could even sound like the whippoorwills and bob-o-links. They would also answer and fly to a tree near us.

One time when we were there, we watched a beaver (maybe two) build a dam across a little body of water. About the size of an ordinary ditch, only wider (Stephen said it sounded like a ravine).

Sometimes we found wildflowers. Mom knew the name of each flower.

Across the road in the hogs' upper pasture just inside the fence were berries to pick at the proper time. What I really found interesting there was the mimosa, or shame briar as it was called. It had long leaves similar to a fern. If you ran a finger along the middle of the leaf, the sides of it folded together.

I loved the dandelions when they came out. When I was small, I was sure I would find an elf sitting on one someday. After all, they are the color of gold.

I looked for four leaf clovers, too.

I also used to try to dig to China. I was just sure I would find their upside down feet on the other side of the world.

Spring rains

Often, spring rains caused the East Fork to flood and we couldn't go to school. Jean and I were just delighted if we woke up and found it had been raining all night. We knew we probably were staying home. Unfortunately, the teacher made us make up any work that we missed.

A Rainy Day

Charley used to tease me in grade school and it made me so mad. He used to say, "Well, tomorrow is Thursday," then he would grin, "unless it rains. Then it is a rainy day."

I used to argue, "You can't do that -- what happens to Thursday?" but he just grinned and repeated that it would be a rainy day if it rained. This wasn't only Thursday; it could be any day.

One time when high school got out for the year, it immediately started raining and rained steadily for a week. Martha Riley (my best friend) and I had really been looking forward to all the things we would have fun doing. Instead, we were stuck in the house writing each other complaining letters.

If Daddy had put any of the crops out when there was a rain like this, he worried that it would be ruined or washed away. If he hadn't put the crop out yet, he worried that it was getting late in the season.

Lightning makes a call

The fiercest storms at home are in the spring. I don't know if the following happened in the spring or not, but it sounds like it.

I used to like to explore upstairs in the house. I found interesting things. One time I showed Mom an old fashioned telephone I found. She said there used to be a party phone line through the neighborhood.

She said when Daddy came home from work in the evening, he used to call a neighbor and all the other neighbors would answer also, and everyone would laugh and talk to each other.

Then they had a really bad storm. The lightning ran in on the phone lines and tore our phone off the wall and slammed it across the room. After that, Daddy didn't get his phone and lines fixed and no one else wanted a phone either. If anyone wanted to make a call, they went to the switchboard at Darksville.

When I was pretty small, Daddy had someone add several lightning rods to the house.

Tornados

In all the time we lived on the farms, there were no tornados. But the grade school gave instructions each year about what to do in case of one. They said stay away from trees, lie in a ditch if there is no water (fat chance!) or lie flat on the ground face down. Always protect the head. If home, get in the middle of the house in a doorway or in a cellar or basement, if there is one.

Charley said he had seen a tornado. He said it drove a piece of straw into a tree.

A tornado finally struck the area. The second farm that Mom sold in November 1966 when she moved out here was three miles east of Moberly where I went to college. About a year or two before David and I went back in 1997, a tornado came in from the east, demolished Mom's used-to-be farm house and tore up a lot of the town of Moberly. This was on the 4th of July.

When the wind is green

We had a very strong wind one time. I haven't seen anything like it since. I looked at the horizon out front and there was a pale green color all along just above it. I pointed it out to Mom and asked why the sky was that color. Mom said it was wind.

Then she said "Help me open the doors and windows." We propped the doors open and raised the windows.

We weren't quite through when the wind started blowing through the house. Mom said to stay out of it and against the wall. It was over in a short time.

At this time, I was probably close to high school age.

Dream - The mall, the man in the devil mask, and the storm

On Saturday morning, November 20, 2010, in a period of sleep ending around 11:00 AM, I had a long dream in which I ended up at a large mall, apparently where the old Osco/Bashas' stores were, at 74th St. and McDowell Rd., then left and wandered off north, possibly to Plaza 777 where the radiator shop used to be, then I went back to the mall again. I was talking to some other people sometimes, at least some of them family members. It was afternoon, a pleasant temperature, mild, the sky clear but kind of a gray tone. I went back in the mall and was wandering around. Besides little shops, it had layers to go though. Some of the mall was to the right, like at Fashion Square, but I went to the left, and it seemed like I was going through layers of primarily the same store, to different departments, with walls between them. I also found some candy by little walls, in glass jars. I ate some of it and was looking for more.

I finally left, taking a heavy white plastic trophy I saw on a shelf by the free snacks. It was a statue of something, heavy and compact and styled, with just the suggestion of an animal form. Out in the parking lot I began to wonder if it was really free, and decided that it probably wasn't. I looked around it for a price tag. At or near the car, the gold 1989 Olds, I finally found a small white sticker with something written on it. I turned it up toward the sky to try to get more light on it, but the light was dim, it was late in the afternoon and the sky was somewhat overcast. A little sunlight came through, though. At first I thought the price was other things, then finally resolved it as $9.00. I decided that I had to take it back. I walked back in with it, hoping that no one would bother me about it. Some people frowned at me, and I eventually set it down somewhere, not where I got it.

I saw my sister, the oldest one, who was several years younger than me, and we walked through the mall together.

It was starting to get late and things getting ready to close. We went back toward the entrance. We passed some people from the store at a minor side entrance, doing a strange dance, one or two dressed in strange clothes and wearing strange lifelike almost devil-like masks, but without the horns, doing a strange acrobatic dance over a large broad mattress-like thing close to the floor, entertainment for the people. A woman showed up with the mask after a while and did some of the tumbles, but it was like they shared the same mask, that the other guy had taken it off while he was gone and then she emerged wearing it, though I think I eventually saw them together with masks on.

Approaching the main exit, I lost my sister and went back into the mall looking for her. I got to where it turned a corner, and there were other little stores, some of them selling food, but they were pulling down their roll-up covers over the fronts of the stores.

Going back, I passed the man with the devil mask and strange costume. He had his shoes off and his feet were covered with fake feet too. The mask was tight fitting and had no seams, and looked natural, though still somewhat rubbery. He had a reflective expression on his face, sitting and looking off into the distance to the right, toward the short exit, rubbing his foot. He talked very briefly. I moved on. Near the main exit, my sister came up behind me. She had been following me for a while, and seemed amused by it.

She had been for a while at a side room across the aisle, too, a place where food was served and also where everyone sang and played musical instruments. I could see them from here. I went over and went in for a while. The place had a tropical theme, which became more manifest deeper into it. At the other side of the room it blended into an outdoor area with plants and palm trees, and round concrete tables among shrubbery. Inside, everyone sat close together. I wandered outside for a while. There were worries and warnings about a storm approaching. It was still light outside, late afternoon, near sundown, still with some sunlight. A strange cloud was there to the southeast though, gray brown, boiling, churning at the edges, on the ground, wider at the top than the bottom, and with a flat top. It was coming this way, visibly so, though people didn't know if it would dissipate before it got here or not. People were running around, though, trying to get away. I kept looking back at it. Each time I looked it was moving this way, but didn't seem to get closer between looks. I wandered off to the southwest, into the parking lot. Large areas were flooding, with tall palm trees sometimes at a slant, sometimes with large areas of sodden mud over the parking lot and things. It had evidently gone through here already.

I went back inside and went over to the main exit. The various things lining it, little stores and various activities, had closed for the most part, and were covered up, but now they were starting to reopen, a late night thing. Things seemed more sinister. The man in the evil mask was back again. A place there was also offering odds at things, like odds on how TV shows would do, and odds on other minor things, and I thought about placing a bet, but wandered back to the main section and was trying to find the board/sign I saw with odds on it. Looking at it, I realized I had misunderstood what I had read before, and the odds weren't good. I decided not to do it. The man with the devil mask was going over a raised, long rectangular area with concrete edges, and a cloth placed over the middle. Underneath it were a series of crosswise rods and large beads. Before, when I was going to leave, he had been on a slanted one, like an escalator, with things in the middle that weren't moving but with bands on the edges moving down, with little rough things on them and around them, like tiny broken rocks. He had been cavorting in the middle and maybe singing. I had tried to grab onto and slide down one of the bands. As I made my way toward the direction of the exit, I saw him looking my way, not entirely happy at it.

It was night now, had been for a while, late, and I went out the exit to leave. It was cold, and the parking lot was covered by cold mud, with snow dusting it in places. Some areas just had a little mud, and some areas were very diluted, almost water, some just slightly dirty water, and some not much of that. It was daylight still then for a while. I went to the car. It was looking normal, but as I got there, or soon after I got there, it changed to a much smaller and lighter electric car, still with front wheel drive. Some other people were coming too to their cars. We passed by some tiny wooden guard shack type things, damaged by the storm, sometimes sitting at angles there between the rows of cars, wet inside. I walked through one and out the other side, wondering a bit if someone would object. The others seemed more afraid to do that. I got to my car, which turned out to have my mother's purse there on a small white table behind the passenger door. I guessed I must have left it outside the car. I was glad no one had taken it.

I got in and drove, not toward the exit at 74th St., but down the row toward the north, then toward the east and into another row going back south, where conditions were much worse, heavy mud covered the pavement. A delivery type truck was backing out down the row ahead of me. It slowly backed out, but there was some kind of trouble, and it finally got going and moved away. There was another big truck on its side at an angle, that I had to go around. In the dream I didn't know why I came back there, it was a lot harder to get through and more dangerous. The small car with front wheel drive that I was in, though, pulled through and over the mud.

I got to the front, by the mall, and turned to the west, toward 74th. Other cars were going out through the exit near the intersection, across from the bank. I didn't like that though. I thought it was too close to the intersection, too hard to get out, although it had a traffic light. However, there didn't seem to be one earlier, and at times, and I tried to go to the south, to another large exit, further away from the intersection. People on the walk around the mall were calling out to me, not to do it, it was too dangerous. It was fully night now, late. I tried to go south, but ran into increasingly heavier, deeper mud, and there was also worry that I might heading into the storm, that it would come through here. I turned around and went back. A little Mexican-type kid, possibly part Indian, had been following me, a little girl. She was associated with someone, a couple of people mainly, but had been following me, and I agreed to let her go along. The car was so tiny now, that she was riding on the back. It was rainy and cool, even chilly. The car seemed to be a two seater with a small wooden platform on the back, even some wood rails going along the sides, and a very short front.

I waited at the light for a while. It turned red just as I got there. Across the street, there was just the sidewalk with landscaping along it. Everything was wet and cold, and rain was softly falling. Water was running in the gutter in front of me, and it was a sharp short slope to the street. I couldn't see the traffic light from here. I had to lean forward and tilt my head to look up, then I could see a tiny curved dark metal tube coming down from it, with the end glowing the color the light was. Off to the right was the intersection with its own traffic lights, and I thought it was going to be a long time to wait, to get them both coordinated properly. There was only a very short wait, though, before I saw the light in the tube above me turn to green, and I pulled out into the street, going south, the girl happily riding along with me, and sometimes running beside me holding on. I had no idea really what I was going to do with her, whether I could drop her off at her house somewhere along the way, maybe on a small side trip, or at somebody else's house along the way, or just a a place where she could make it home from or be picked up from, an intersection in the neighborhood, or if I even had to take her to my house for a while. Her parents seemed to approve her going along with me though, so I guessed it was alright, whatever was going to happen.