July 9, 2012

July 9, 2012

     Ever since I was a little girl I have enjoyed stormy nights. There is something to be said about the excitement that is felt knowing a big thunderstorm is brewing. Hearing the clapping in the distance, knowing it is getting near. I grew up in a home with a walk out basement, which my grandparents didn’t have. So when there was bad storms they would come up and stay until the storms passed. My Grandparents lived just down the county road from us in a rural area. It seemed like every time it rained I would start pestering my parents saying, “Should Grandma and Grandpa come up?”, “When are they coming?” I was so anxious for them to get to our house, but it was simply because I loved them at our house; it was so exciting between the storms and getting a spontaneous visit from my grandparents. I would get so wound up when I would see their headlights through the rain and then they would be trying to walk as fast as their old feet would let them to beat the rain. If it started to lightning, my Mom would unplug everything in the house except this old, black Emerson radio. It had seen better days, the antenna was broken off from my brother and I playing with it and the cassette player had to be finagled if you wanted it to work right, but our local radio station came in just fine. We would always listen to make sure there weren’t any tornado warnings. We would sit in the dark and listen to the rain, hail, and high winds combined with country music and the stations own storm warnings in the background. I always hated when the storms where over. It’s not like I had a death wish, I just hated when my grandparents decided to go home. My own party cut short. The storms were never long enough.