We have had some really bad weather come through our area in the past few days, as the high winds, hail and heavy rains pounded the ground, trees, house tops and everything in the path.
As we went to bed last night, the weatherman was predicting all the inclement weather to hit us in about an hour. It makes me think about my Daddy and his reaction to bad weather. If a thunderstorm or threat of high winds was predicted before bed, we always had to wait until it came about before going to sleep. If it happened after we were asleep, he would wake us up, make us dress, (said we could not get blown into a tree in our nightclothes) and sit on the side of the bed readying ourselves for the inevitable possibility of landing in a tree or ditch during the storm.
I do not know, but I believe that at some time in his younger life he must have experienced an incident that compromised his safety in a storm. Otherwise, his irrational fear would not have been that great. I can now laugh at how frustrated he would get at my mother because she refused to be frightened by the meteorological conditions and would just keep sleeping. She always said, “If it’s your time, the good Lord will take you, even if you are hiding underneath the bed. He will just pull you out by your feet!” He declared the Lord gave us sense to prepare for trouble.
I grew up with my mother’s mind set. I do not become alarmed at the predicted bad weather. I do respect it and know that we could see tornadoes and storms but just feel no need to prepare for a “maybe.” We have a storm cellar that is located about twenty feet below our back brick porch. When our children were growing up, Roy would insist that we bunker down there and wait out the storm. As I have explained before, I am extremely claustrophobic and I would much rather climb down from a pine tree than be buried beneath a three story brick house. I do not go into the storm cellar.
My children and grandchildren are more inclined to think as their Meme, except one child and one grandson. The grandson walks the floor and has already found a closet underneath one of their staircases to be a good sanctuary from storms. My middle child has always been somewhat nervous during bad weather. Once I remember his family coming to get into our storm basement and as they descended the stairs, my daughter had left one of her bigger dolls standing on the steps and its face and body had become discolored and its hair matted, and her eyes bulging. As they climbed down the last steps, there she stood! They decided to ride out the storm outside the confines of the “crypt.”
There are usually lots of boiled eggs left over from our children’s egg hunts. This is a really good chicken salad recipe that I make.
Chicken salad
6 boiled eggs
1/3 cup of mayonnaise
1 stalk diced celery
¼ cup sweet pickle relish
2 t. Dijon mustard
salt and pepper
Mix all together and serve on bread. We use my slices of my homemade bread and you have the recipe.
