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The Lions March
We got to the farm around three yesterday, and played hard the rest of the afternoon and into the night.
After dinner we sat around on the front porch talking, as the first few drops of rain started to fall.
The first raindrops on a tin roof always seem to hit the hardest.
Soon the shower turned into a storm, and we moved our conversation inside. The moms were busy trying to get the kids to settle down and go to sleep. Given how hard we'd played since we had gotten to the farm I decided sleep wasn't such a bad idea.
Janice had made a pallet for the little ones on the floor and they were fast asleep. RZ staked her claim to sleep in our bed, which was fine, but I knew that meant I needed a place to sleep because the three of us weren't going to fit in a twin.
I opt to camp out on the front porch.
In theory this made great sense: it's a comfortable night, it's too early in the season for mosquitos, it's raining + tin roof = great night's sleep.
So I find a sleeping bag, and head out for the night.
I fall asleep around 10 o'clock.
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Thunder hits the house like a bomb.
I was almost asleep. I check my watch. It's one a.m. Scratch that, I've been asleep for three hours. How?
Now I'm wide awake, on high alert. The sky is glowing pink from the constant lightning. I feel the thunder in my chest.
The rain, my God, the rain! It isn't just falling, it's like it's being pushed... squeezed out of the sky. It sounds like lions roaring on the tin roof.
The wind is blowing the rain horizontal, the outside my sleeping bag is soaked, but I'm still dry.
I'm scared.
I'm awed.
I watch that storm move on, only to be followed by another storm, then another, and another. I think to myself and laugh that "We're in middle of a Train Echo." as my weatherfreak wife would say.
Then I remember that train echos usually mean tornadoes. I rationalize that I'm safe because the house has been here since 1850. I told myself that "This house has seen worse. This house has seen worse.", although I don't think I ever have.
I stay awake, hiding in the sleeping bag, watching all hell break loose from one o'clock 'til around four o'clock, when it got so bad that Jeff came out and asked me to come inside.
I go right in, find a spot, and sleep until nine a.m.
Later on this morning Jeff laughs and says, "Dude you know it's rough out if I'm asking you to come inside!"
Dude, it WAS that bad.
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Ellaville Pictures
3/27/2005 09:21:00 PM
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