The Storm is Coming One Way or Another

It was mid September and the leaves were just turning colors.This was my most favorite time of year I quess partly because that was my birthday month.

It was also a time when the farm finally started giving up everything we had worked on over the summer. The garden was bursting with big juicy tomatoes and pumpkins, and a multitude of vegetables. It was a time to prepare for winter. My Mom would can the vegetables in Mason jars and prepare for the long cold winter to come.

We lived on a farm in Western New York where the weather could be brutal in winter. The wind blowing off Lake Ontario brought ice and snow that covered everything. Preparing for the winter was hard work and on our farm it was all done by my Dad and his helper a Polish man named Jacob. He didn't speak English but my Dad was fluent in both Polish and English.

This time of year they were stuffing straw into cracks in our old barn to keep the drifting snow and wind from our cattle and the water troughs from freezing. It was alot of work but my parents didn't have much money so he couldn't employ any other help. Jacob only required a roof over his head. My brother Bill, 7 years old sister Pat was 9 years old and I being only 5 were too young to help with any of the heavy work. We mainly just helped Mom, picking vegetables and raking leaves. Mom was a nurse and she kept the wallet full . Dairy farming wasn't big bucks and the little we took in selling vegetables by the road didn't amount to much, but between all the food the farm took in we managed.

Mom worked long hours and so Dad and Jacob were our baby sitters. Dad wasn't so strict but Jacob was mean. He always looked miserable in my eyes but I quess I wouldn't look too happy if I was without a country and most of my family dead from the War. He had wierd ideas , like when our dog killed a chicken. Jacob tied the dead chicken around his neck. He said to teach the dog a lesson, you don't kill our food. I thought it was really cruel . We had alot of chickens what was the big deal.

My parents didn't have the convenience that parents have today, like plopping your kid in front of a t.v. In fact we didn't even have a t.v. until the middle of the 1950s. You can forget about cell phones or computers. No, we were left to our own imaginations and ours were quite exciting. We also got in trouble because of this.

The other side of this story was we never knew what the weather was going to be. The only weather report you got was when Mom brought home the local paper. When you realize how difficult it is to forecast the weather today you can imagine back then.

All anyone knew was the weather was unpedictable and so any change in the wind or sky and you prepared for the worst. Hurricanes did sometimes come this far north.

On this day that I 'm telling you about the winds seemed to be picking up and dark clouds were starting to move in from the west where as we knew it the bad weather came from or so folklore had it.

This made Dad particularly nervous and jerky and it seemed that all he did that day was run from one end of the farm to another. He was tying tarps over hay left by the side of the barn, nailing plywood to windows and doors all in between checking on where we were and helping Jacob coral the cattle into the barns. The horses were wild they seemed to sense bad weather way before us, neighing wildly and scratching the earth with their hooves.

Pat, Bill and I had just finished bringing up the last load of tomatoes to the back porch. We loved the excitement this weather brought and we laughed and joked while watching Dad and Jacob running around . Years later I likened it to the scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy and the farmhands were preparing for the storm.

While we watched Pat came up with what at the time we thought was a funny joke to pull on Dad and Jacob. Pat always came up with the ideas and Bill and I always got involved some way or another.

Well Pat's idea was we take some tomatoes, the smushy rotten ones, we didn't want to waste anything. Anyway we would smash the tomatoes on the porch and make it look like blood. My role was to lay down by the bushel and they would place the bushel on my head. At that point Pat and Bill would start screaming for Dad.

"Help help," they screamed sis has been hurt we can't get her up.

Next thing I knew the bushel was whipped off my head and there stood Dad. We all started laughing, well except Dad and Jacob was right behind him holding a piece of rope.

Oh crap I remember thinking. Jacobs going to tie that bushel around my head . I was scared and once Dad started yelling at us we were all scared. This was not going to end up good.

Dad grabbed Pat's and Bill's ears, he always did that and pulled them into the house. Jacob grabbed me by the hair and dragged me in behind them.

Right about then there was a loud clap of thunder and we heard a loud crack. A tree outside the house had been hit and had fallen on the porch on the exact spot where my head had been minutes before.

Dad looked at me, grabbed me away from Jacobs grip and starting hugging and kissing me. Wow I thought he was really scared.. Pat and Bill just stood staring , mouths agape. They realized I could have been dead.

Mom came home from work a few hours later and instead of kissing me she gave us all a spanking and sent us to bed without supper.

"Hmmm, is all I thought parents were as unpredictable as the weather.