A Thunderous Night

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The thunderstorm had been announcing its approach for the last half hour with distant thunder rolls and soft flickering of lightning through the leaves.

I lazed away on the bed watching the director's comments on a western movie on my laptop, occassionally drifting into a nap. The cat snored at the corner of the bed.

I was dazed from the heat of the day and my skin was tacky with dried sweat. The cabin was still warm from the afternoon swelter, but the wind was picking up outside, slowly sucking the heat from the room.

The storm arrived with the violence of my movie. Rain pounded the walls as lightning flashed and thunder shook my A-frame shelter. Shotguns smashed walls as the Burns' Gang crashed Capt. Stanley's Christmas party.

The fan blades slowed and sped up again as the lamp flickered.

I knew the power would shut off and my alarm clock would blink 12:00 all night, so I set the alarm clock on my cell phone as a back up.

Sleeping to the crash of thunder and patter of rain is always relaxing, though the explosions of lightning were a little unsettling. I considered turning on the radio to see if any serious wind damage was on the way, but I didn't want to get excited about the storm. I wanted to go to bed.

Then I sat up. The cat awakened and looked at me. I threw the sleeping bag off the chair and took my jacket from the chair back, yanked on my sandals, grabbed the headlamp, popped my old leather cowboy hat on my head and dug out my keys.

I didn't want to go out there in the downpour, but my windows of my car were down. There were all kinds of important papers in there and books that I needed and some weren't even mine. Court documents, trail descriptions, personal letters.

Everything in the car was getting soaked and ruined while I'd been watching the DVD of the various outrages of the Burns' Gang for the hundredth time. It was all because I hadn't taken the three seconds to put up the windows when I came home from work, skeptical about the forecast 20-percent chance of storms.

Over the past year and a half I've lived in that A-frame. I have worn a bare path in the grass. In the downpour, the path became a ditch filled with 3-inches of water I splashed through in sandaled feet.

My fleece jacket was soaked in five seconds. The rain pounding on my old dried-up hat was a drum roll in my ears.

My emotions were mixed shining the light on the car windows - shut tight and protecting every single one of my things from the downpour. Of course I was relieved nothing was damaged, but a sensation of foolishness quickly overcame that relief. Then terror seized the day as lightning crashed close with an instantaneous bang and I puddle jumped back inside, not unlike a frightened frog fleeing a hungry bass, or Mrs. Stanley panicking over a shotgun discharged by one of the Burns boys.

I did not catch up on the sleep as I had longed to do Tuesday night, the excitement of the storm keeping my blood pumping into the wee hours. It was nice to be in the middle of a whopper of a summer storm.

As I recall Tuesday night's thunderstorm drama, I note the rain is now slapping at the office window and thunder is shaking up Vine Street. And I can't remember if I kept my windows cracked or shut when I returned from lunch.

Burden Falls will be roaring today.

The various creeks converging in Bell Smith Springs will be flowing with that magical blue water. Those fish that bit at my leg hairs last weekend will be frenetic as the surface explodes above them.

-- DeNeal is a staff writer for The Daily Register and The Daily Journal. He may be contacted at 253-7146 ext. 230 or by e-mail at bdeneal@yourclearwave.com.