Sometimes there’s just nothing like a good old-fashioned summer storm.
The steady roll of the rainfall as it soaks everything in sight, the flashes of lightning that brighten the sky, the crack of thunder as it causes just the slightest tremor, enough to rattle that fine china sitting in your living room cabinet that you never use.
I bring it up because, to be perfectly honest, we haven’t exactly HAD one like that this summer, at least not yet. Lord knows the crops and the overall landscape in this region could use an epic rainfall; perhaps if I delved into tales of past storms, that could serve as something of a taunt towards Mother Nature? Some form of “verbal rain dance” perhaps?
The first storm I think of happened in July of 2011, and it was a storm that formulated while I was in the Outlook movie theater. The movie was ‘The Green Lantern’, and in the long scheme of things, the storm from this night was much more memorable than the movie.
This particular storm produced some of the heaviest rain I’ve ever driven in, and by the time the movie let out, it was not only storming bad, but it was dark. I remember a line of vehicles leaving Outlook and all of us taking our sweet time crossing the traffic bridge because visibility was that bad. At one point, I had to pull over on Highway 15 and just let the worst of the rain come and go so I could see a bit better getting home to Conquest.
Oh, but the fun didn’t end there once I got home. See, we have this trap door that goes down into something of a well in our basement, and we open it in heavy rainfall to see how much water it brings in in case we have to pump it out. When I got home, I realized the power had gone out in Conquest. Minutes later, my brother Brendon comes screaming up the stairs, “KOLA FELL IN THE HOLE!!!”
Our dog, a black Lab named Kola who hated thunderstorms with a passion – as most dogs do – had retreated downstairs to get away from the noise. Unfortunately, she ran into Brendon’s room – where the trap door to the well is located – and she took a dive down into it. I honestly thought I was going to look down into that 10-foot hole and see a dead dog, but Kola was a strong pup. She was pacing around nervously with a cut on her head and luckily responded to my calls. Eventually, my brother Perry got down into the well and brought her up, where she was showered with all sorts of extra attention for the next few days as she healed up.
The other storm I think of actually took place exactly one year ago this coming Friday, July 20.
I had stayed late to get some work done and was on my way home. I even remember what I was listening to; the Howard Stern Show on Sirius satellite radio, and Howard was interviewing Robert J. O’Neill, a decorated former Navy SEAL turned author who is actually the man who ended up killing Osama bin Laden back in 2011.
The rainfall I was driving through eventually turned into hail, and this happened as I was just a few minutes outside of Conquest on a grid access road. Well, it turned out that I wasn’t going home just yet, as a large tree had been knocked down clear across the road in the middle of this torrential hail. I was literally only about 100 feet from the Conquest village limits – I probably could’ve honked my horn and they would’ve heard me at home – but I just couldn’t cross the road until the storm had cleared and the trees had been cleaned up. I had to reverse, turn around and go back up to the highway and take the other access road into town to get home.
I drove into work early the next morning and saw that Outlook had just been ravaged; trees left and right, houses damaged, all sorts of messes from the wind and gusts of hail. Of course, the worst was down in the village of Strongfield, as most of us know that the community ended up losing their curling rink to violent winds in all the chaos.
If you want to get even worse than that, the belief is that the storm ended up causing the drowning deaths of two men who were out on a boat on Lake Diefenbaker. Their boat capsized due to the horrific heights of the water when the storm was at its worst, and there was just no way out of it for them. Very sad.
I do love a good summer storm, but I suppose I don’t like some of the memories that come from some of the biggest ones I’ve experienced.
All the same, I happen to think they’re something of a summer tradition in these parts.
For this week, that’s been the Ruttle Report.
