It's A Comin' Up a Cloud....

 When you live in the south, you learn how to expect the unexpected when it comes to weather.  We can have a tornado race thru one day, and have snow flurries the next.  In the late summer, when the heat has almost melted our skin off, we get a glimpse of a cool autumn breeze.  As we bask in the notion of watching red and yellow leaves fall...  BAM, the heat wave continues.  When I was a little girl, we were VERY weather aware!  My Paw made sure EVERYBODY knew a storm was coming when he made his famous phone calls.  "Ya'll better git outta that place or you're gonna git your a** blowed away".  Those words will forever be seared into my brain.  Like I've said before, our house was just down the yard from Granny and Paw.  We didn't have a backyard, and not much of a front yard.  I had quite the imagination and had "roads" and "houses" everywhere.  I had a bicycle, and I rode MANY miles up the hill and down.  I would pull into my "driveway", then "take my kids to school and go get them".  Mama set me up a table with a phone and flowers, so I would have an "office" to go to.  I was probably 7 years old when I was playing like this, but I remember it like it was yesterday.  One day while I was at "work", I noticed the clouds started to roll in.  It was humid that day, and there were murmurings of bad weather on the way.  Now, my Paw's definition of bad weather and the rest of the world's definition was completely different.  When the day had finally ended, and my daddy got home from work, and we had supper.  It was a typical night at home where watched tv (probably MASH or The Dukes of Hazzard) and tried to just wind down from the day.  It was an unusual night, because I was in my bed!  Around midnight, Mama came to my room and said, "Tina you got to get up, we've got to go to the storm pit".  Before mama came to get me, we got that phone call we all knew was coming.  Yep, Paw had made his rounds with his demand, and we were the only two crazy enough to follow his orders.  Mama had woken Daddy up to tell him of the awful storm headed our way and that we had just about waited too late to head out.   Well friends, Daddy didn't buy it!  He told Mama it wasn't doing anything, and we just needed to go back to bed.  Without hesitation, Mama whisked me up and we opened the door.  Words can't describe the sound of the rain as it hit our tin roof.  As we walked out of the door, I could see the faint light of Paw's flashlight leading the way to our underground mud hole.  Like any panicked person would do, Mama grabbed me by the hand and started to run for Paw's light.  I remember the mud splashing on my legs as we ran frantically for the light, when it happened!!  Mama slipped and fell!!  Not only did she fall in the mud, but she also caught the corner of her prized cactus bed.  Any child seeing their Mama fall on the ground would naturally be upset.  While Mama was wallowing in the mud, I was screaming "Mama, "Mama.  Get up!  Get out of the mud".  With my cries unanswered, all she could do was yell "Run Tina, RUUUUUUN"!  Like a good girl, I took off running to Paw.  We scurried down the ditch bank where a nice sized stream had started to flow past the entrance of the storm pit.  As I entered the door, here came Mama.  She looked as though she had just won first prize in the local mud wrestling competition, only she had no trophies or medals to show off.  We had all made it safely inside and just as we sat down, it all stopped.  The deadly rainstorm had stopped!  Paw didn't even have time to light the lamps, and it was all over!  When it was decided there was no danger, we all went back to our homes.  Keep in mind, no wind, thunder, nor lighting...  Just rain!!  The next morning the sky was blue, and the sun was smiling down as if nothing had happened the night before.  Mama still had mud in her eye lashes and eyebrows.  I noticed she was walking funny, and it was many years later before I knew exactly why.  Remember her prized cactus patch?  Let's just say, to this very day, she is still picking thorns out of her backside!  I find it ironic, after that incident, the cactus patch disappeared.  Whenever it rains, I think about the night Mama learned how rain turns dirt into mud, and thorns in the rear can mess a girl up.  I believe this is the reason she never learned to skate.  She ended her career before it was started, when she did her skating on mud that rainy night on Turkey Hop Hill....