When I was 6 years old my mother got me a Morton Salt "bubble" umbrella, because "when it rains, it pours." And then Mom let me go outdoors to walk in the rain with my new umbrella. I did not jump in puddles, I walked. Up and down the sidewalk in front of our house, in Mount Prospect, Illinois, on Main Street. [had I seen Walking In The Rain I am quite certain that I would have been singing and dancing in the rain.]
Thus began a lifelong love of rainy days and thunder storms, and lightning ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning ), and clouds,... but not wind (sorry, hate wind,.. allergies and long hair, you know.) ... For a few years thereafter I did take that bubble umbrella and walk in the rain, wherever we lived.
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| when it rains, it pours bubble umbrella |
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| the girl was the handle |
My Dad had a habit that my mother hated...he liked to stand in the open doorway, with his face close to the screen, and watch storms,... the harder it rain, the more it thundered, the more Dad loved it. And the closer he got to opening the door and joining the storm. And, much to Mother's dismay, I was the same... perhaps she regretted giving me that umbrella....
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April 21, 1967 Tornado outbreak in northern Illinois
I was just a little kid.... we were at our lake house, on Fox Lake, in Antioch, Illinois. There were windy thunderstorms, and my mother was able to convince me to leave the front room, with it's 4 large picture windows. The next day my Father tried to call my brother, back in Des Plaines, at the families greenhouses, at least I am guessing that he tried to call.... In any event, the three of us, Dad, Mom, and I, got in the car and started heading home to Des Plaines, Illinois. My memory of it that it was as if we were among the last people on the planet. There was very little sign of life in any of the areas we passed through, on our way down Fairfield Road and onto North Old McHenry Road, through the Lake Zurich area.... when we crossed North Midlothian Road and my parents exclaimed, in hushed voices, over the devastation of a trailer park that had been located along the south side of Old McHenry Road there.
Sitting in the back seat of the big Oldsmobile, I can remember sensing my parents rising alarm and the devastated scenes along the way, and the fact that the world seemed deserted.... we went down Arlington Heights Road (which in those days was still a gravel farm road), and the further along we went the more boarded up storefronts my parents saw, and the more alarmed they became. Dad and Mom in the front seat of the car, speaking in hushed tones, unaware that I was sensing their increasing alarm. Finally we arrived at the greenhouses, only to see that there was no destruction at all, only a few large branches had fallen from the huge trees out front..... and then my brother, John, came walking over from his home on the north part of the property. Yes, it had been quite a storm, but the huge, glass, greenhouses were intact, everyone there was safe. (that is where my memory of the event ends....)
[for more information check out this link: April 21,1967, northern Illinois tornadoes
There were 3 recorded F4 tornadoes: in Belvidere, Illinois where the high school was demolished, in Lake Zurich, Illinois, and in Oak Lawn, Illinois, as well as several F2 and F1 tornadoes.]
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I have seen some very scary looking clouds:
which happened to precede some serious thunderstorms and tornadoes across parts of Indiana and Ohio a few years ago.... I had been driving a tractor-trailer down out of Wisconsin on I-39, south of Madison, and in the distance the sky was troubling.... it was dark in the distance at 10:30 in the morning, and I was just pressing on, hoping to reach my destination before the storm hit.
I arrived at the appointed location to park the vehicle, and the photo above, with the swirling, "boiling" clouds is an excellent representation of what I was seeing. I stood on the pavement, spellbound by the awesome and terrifying clouds in the sky... several workers came out of a nearby warehouse, and we all just stood silently for several minutes.... some of us took pictures (below are a few of mine),.... and there were whispers of "tornado" and "no funnel", all hushed by the fearful appearance of those clouds. After several minutes we all returned to our duties, but with a little fear in the heart.
Later that day, as those same clouds moved off to the south and east, they erupted into fearsome wind storms and spawned tornadoes as well. (This was June 29, 2012)
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| 9933 North Alpine Road, Machesney Park |
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On April 12, 2014 I was trying to exit a Walmart store when I captured video of a hailstorm....
It was impressive... I approached the exit door and instantly realized that I could capture the moment from the perfect vantage point. It was a bit fearsome. It was difficult to walk to the car afterward, crunching on the icy pellets and trying not to slip and fall,... the hail stones crunched loudly under the car tires.
And, along the way, in my travels I have taken countless pictures of clouds, not to mention hundreds of times I was awed by the beauty of clouds, but did not have a safe opportunity to photograph said clouds.
Should you be wondering, as of this posting (April 5, 2017), in my entire life I have never witnessed an actual tornado, not even from a distance. I hope I never do see a tornado.
The skies can be mesmerizing in any conditions, but clouds,... clouds can so beautiful and awesome.... and I could go on and on....
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