There's a Storm Coming

The clouds look incredible, don't they? I used my regular camera and didn't do anything to the pictures. They almost look like black and white photographs. I can see pictures in the clouds. How about you? These photographs remind me of my mother. Momma used to sing "Stormy Weather" to Scout when he was little. I can still remember his sweet clear little voice singing "Storm-y Weav-urrr" with such feeling as he sang along with her. Stormy Weather was made famous by the great black entertainer Lena Horne in the movie Panama Hattie in 1942.

"don't know why there's no sun up in the sky, stormy weather since my man and I ain't together, keeps raining all the time . . ."

"There's a storm coming." Know where that line came from? Sara Conner was at a gas station somewhere in Mexico filling up her Jeep. The old Mexican pumping the gas was interpreting what the young boy was trying to tell her, 'There's a storm coming.' That's right. It was THE TERMINATOR.

A huge storm is heading towards the east coast. Hurricane Irene has been labeled a category 3 hurricane with expected landfall around North Carolina with high winds of 115-120 miles per hour. I hope everyone is able to evacuate in time and don't come back home to  loss and destruction. My heart goes out to everyone in the path of this storm. "Run Forest, run!" Can you tell I'm on a movie quote kick tonight?

We could use some rain around here but we don't need a deluge. The ground is so dry that it won't be able to absorb the water and it will make a river around here. The grass we planted in the front yard never really took off because I haven't been watering it very much. The ground under the Magnolia trees is cracked from lack of water. We haven't gotten a good soaking rain since, when? Maybe the forth of July. I don't know but I do know that everything is drying up and the grass is going to seed. I hope we get some rain out of this storm.

I'm looking at the Weather Channel right now and it looks like we're not going to get any rain any time soon. It's not always fun to be hooked into this new technological age. You can check out the weather several days in advance. It's a bummer when the weather won't cooperate.

One time, when the boys were little, Donny and I went on vacation without checking the weather channel. We drove around until we found a motel on the beach. The desk clerk said, 'no refunds'. I asked what she meant. She told us a hurricane was headed that way and there were no refunds for the room. Donny and I paid for one night and checked in. We took the boys to the beach and played for a while. The weather was nice. Donny insisted that we get to sleep early and leave early to hurry back home ahead of the storm.

We got up after a few hours and started driving home. State Patrol officers and volunteers stopped traffic at the Florida-Alabama line. They offered shelter in that area. We decided to keep driving. Donny drove our big clunky orange van through an awful storm. We drove from Panama City and on through Alabama until we reached the Georgia state line. Then we high tailed it on home. That little vacation only lasted about 24 hours. I swore then that I would never take another vacation without watching the Weather Channel first. Coincidentally that was the year that Colt played Little League baseball on the Hurricanes team. 

If it rains around here we will all be 'singing in the rain'. Sorry. I couldn't resist just one more.

 'I'll be back!'

As Always

PIO