Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-34343471-20180815215554/@comment-35319541-20180824223327

Yeah tornadoes can be the worst, I remember when we were kids at my grandparents in the country- up came a gusty strong storm, hail and yellow skies, we had to go to the "storm cellar" which meant going down a rather scary wooden ladder into the well area wow, just a small ledge to stand on so far underground, or at least it seemed back then, don't know how my mom braved sending 5 small kids down there, and wondering who would fall into the well. That was scarier than the thought of a tornado to me.

Then when my first was 2 years old we lived in Urbana, no basement, and on the outskirts of town, surrounded by corn fields. It was a beautiful day out, sun shining, kid in the back yard on the swing set, I was watching him thru the kitchen window while I was doing dishes. All the sudden the sky behind him turned dark, I realized it was the dirt in the field, wow, I was so scared, I ran out to get him to come in and he just kept hanging on to the swing chain, all the while dirt was being thrown onto us, stinging, finally got him off and inside to a hall closet, his dad thought I had lost my mind, then the notice on the news came thru, we lived a mile from the highway, where a tornado had just blown down to Rantoul, demolishing a trailer park among other things. He was stunned that I had reacted so fast and got us in a safe spot, luckily, that mile saved us from any real harm...

Here the thunder and lightning get so crazy, the whole house shakes and the sky lights up like no tomorrow, wind gets crazy sometimes downing trees but so far, nothing worse than that. We seem to be in some sort of little hole where the bad weather moves around us, or something of the sort.

The only wild animals we ever had was a parakeet, that evidently escaped someone's home and my son caught him and we made it a pet, it would ride on his shoulders, all over the house, he musst have been 4 or 5 at the time. Then before when he was 2 or 3 he had a pet butterfly, a monarch that would land on him and cling as he walked around. He would go outside and call "here butterfly butterfly" and sure enough one would come land on him, even got pictures of it, it was something to see alright. He had a pet butterfly all summer, lol.