Tornado Day

That's right, it is the time of year when Mother Nature has some fun with us humans. The months of snow and cold and wind weren't enough, and with summer on the way she needs a little action to get her through the humdrum mosquito days of heat and humidity.

A person can feel it in their bones when a storm like this is approaching.

It rained all day yesterday and thunderstorms have brought in the morning. When they cease the heat will build, with the sun shining in some futile attempt to trick the earth's inhabitants that all meteorological action has ended. Wrong. The heat being shot down by the sun is actually building under the stratosphere and will later mix with cold air causing a very unstable environment. The cold and hot will twist and suck and grab at anything it can find—mostly open farmland.

The sound of a tornado siren is embedded in every prairie person's brain, so that even with a TV blasting, or water running in the sink, you hear it. And the chill goes all the way up your legs to your neck. You grab children, documents, pets and head for the basement—if you have one. If you don't, you run to the neighbor's house, or drive down the road to the local shelter.

And you wait.

When it clears, it is as if it was never here. The sun shines again, the grass is a brilliant shade of green and all you are left with is a strange feeling inside that each person holds in their eyes, but can't speak with their tongue.

And the wind at your window, while you lay in sheets sticking with humidity, will whistle a haunting sound, so that you cannot forget.