I remember the storms of long ago that as a child I would huddle to my grandmother & bury my face in her shoulder...& she would always comfort me to tell me it was going to be 'ok'. 'Did you know that when you hear the Thunder that is merely God bowling with the Angels?' she would ask me. 'What about the bright lightening, Grandma' I would reply. 'Oh, that's nothin'....only God turning on the lights for Angel's to find their way ....someone must be lost'...she would tell me. It all sounded so good & I wanted to believe that it was true...but God was sure scarey when he wanted to be. Mother Nature had nothing on him I would think.
The sky was turning darker & the clouds went from soft puffs of cotton to a gray blanket that wrinkled with each blowing wind. For a while it seemed as if we were in the middle...our own little planet of sunshine. Then it was as if God rolled over & pulled the gray blankets up closer to cover him.
The gentle rains kept the humidity at bay for awhile & again I felt like a child who really wanted to run with the neighboring children, tossing a beach ball in the air & catch a rain drop on the tip of my tongue. Alas, I snapped quickly back to the present & tried to cover our belongings, hold up the tarp that would now divide our canopies while my husband fastened them up. He's a genius in my eyes sometimes....thinking to bring along things that I would never imagine that would be needed. How do men 'learn' to take care of those weaker & innocent than them? My Grandfather was always prepared when we went camping for all kinds of weather. I sat watching the rain, the people walking by, those taking shelter, pushing the water from tops of the neighboring canopies to release the sagging tarps, listening with one ear to the conversations & directions from my friends all the while listening with my other ear for the signs of Thunder that could roll in on a second notice.
The bands continued to play. The audience broke out their umbrellas & continued to sit on the hillside in the fold up canvas chairs or at the near by picnic tables... they were die hard....a little rain was not going to steer them back to their cars or campers. It was like an 'old persons Woodstock Festival Country Style'.....I think Woodstock would have been the best place in the world to have gone when I was a young. Where would I be today if I would have gone to Woodstock? Was there anyone from where I lived that traveled by vans, cars, buses to Woodstock....I'll never know.
The wind picked up from out of nowhere & I was that little girl coming out of the woods with my cousins in tow trying to make it back to the campers all safe & sound. There was threatening weather coming our way. We lay across the fold down bed, Grandma, Grandpa, Pierre & I....listening to scanners, the thunder, the cracks of lightening as it touched the ground, the near by lake. It was a Tornado storm that was coming close. I don't know who was shaking the most. I wanted to cry I was so scared. I had to be brave, I was older now....there was nobody bowling above us & no light switches being turned off & on anymore. This was Mother Nature at her best...angry with the Earth I thought. The band was trying to keep the stage from blowing over & the amps blew up....the show was now over. There would be no more playing tonight. The festival was over. That quick the winds died back down, a small ray of evening sun tried to pop through the blanket of gray clouds. I was back. Back at being an adult, the one to make the final call to call it off. It's time to pack up, get the tickets down to the stage, call off the winning number & then head out.
On the way back up the hill, the water, grass & clover covered my toes as the mud oozed between my toes....I was 10 again for only a minute.
