Storms

As the rains reappear in our skies, leaving pools, puddles and damp concrete, I remember all the great storms from my past here in Seattle. At only one time during my 50+ years of residence on Queen Anne Hill did our power fail. It all depended on which substation covered your residence. We had the one down on Sixth Avenue North near Denny Way. Another time the power failed on Thanksgiving, but it was during a storm on the north side of the Hill, not our side.

Those two lapses of power remind me that we were unusually lucky in the respect that the fierce storms of the 1940s-1960s were mostly rumbling of thunder and rarely lightning. The occasions when lightning appeared were few and far apart.

This is no longer the case. When thunder rolls, it is shortly after a bright flash of lightning crosses the sky. Now, the interesting thing about lightning is that it becomes an optical illusion. How many of you know that lightning rises from the iron in the substrata of the earth instead of swizzling down from the sky? This was a fact of which I never heard, read or was told during my youth. I had to find out as a senior citizen!

Storms, very dangerous things to be out in without proper protective gear. I walked home from work during the Columbus Day storm of 1962, and the Valentine’s Day storm of 1979. But neither of those seemed that rough at the time. My worst homecoming was the first day of the November Freeze of 1955. I had to walk home from downtown, having been at the dentist’s. The Novocain had worn off, but the chill from the temperature, which had dropped into the ‘teens, gave me enough of a chill to keep the pain away.  All that being said, I welcome the rain back into my life and that of the plants, flowers and trees around me, all of whose need for the rain is felt keenly. Stay warm, when you can, enjoy the upcoming holiday season and do come to our public meetings, because you never know what might be presented, nor who might show up as a guest!