From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

Remember the cartoon of Snoopy typing the first line of his novel “It was a dark and stormy night”?

Well, this time it’s me. I’m using his famous line for my weekly column.   

It was a dark and stormy night…sirens were screaming warnings of looming tornados coming in from the west! The blaring noises made me think of the sirens alerting people in the Ukraine of planes approaching with bombs and armed soldiers advancing on their cities. Angry black clouds filled the dark sky looming over my house. Our pine trees were swishing, jitterbugging with the erratic winds; I heard tree branches falling on the roof and imagined our large maples thrown to the ground by forceful winds. My cell phone screamed red alerts! Don’t hesitate. Go to a safe, low place away from windows and trees. GO NOW!

Like many old lake houses built in the fifties, our house doesn’t have a basement. Only a dark, damp crawl space with a dirt floor is under our living space. It’s probably occupied with skittering mice, crawly spiders and other bugs.  

I wasn’t going there!  

Though the wall of windows facing the lake pulled me to a fascinating, frightening view of thrashing waves and dark clouds, I figured I’d better get to the laundry room, the lowest place in my house with no windows. Huddled on a stool with my phone alerts visible, lights on and alone, I almost wished I had joined my husband in steamy, hot Florida for endless tennis matches. He’ll travel most anywhere for a good tennis match.

Sitting alone in the laundry room crowded with a freezer, buckets and baskets, cleaning supplies, washer, dryer and laundered clothes, scattered, nervous thoughts filled my head…

I remembered being a kid living at the jail. I had the same frightened feelings when I awoke in the middle of a stormy night in my bedroom, which was situated next to the upstairs women’s jail. Growing up when Dad was a sheriff was a unique experience for a kid. My friends lived in regular wood houses with green yards and sidewalks. The sheriff’s family had living quarters attached to Dad’s office and a cell block of six cells for men and an upstairs women’s jail. Our large, red brick jail home was located on a city block in the middle of town next to the Pope County court house, a parking lot and sprawling green lawns.  

My bedroom was at the far end of a long hallway with only one wall separating me from the upstairs women’s jail. My parents, sister Barbie and Millie, a single woman roomer who lived with us, had bedrooms close to the stairway leading to the ground floor. I was a teenager with a vivid imagination; it didn’t take much to scare me, especially when I’d hear angry prisoners pounding on the walls, hollering for the sheriff to come get them out of jail! Only one wall separated me from those scary women!      

Storms made me feel insecure, I felt so alone…but I have to admit, I kind of liked my independence and privacy. I was a teenager with a record player and 45s of the Everly Brothers, Johnny Mathis, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Pat Boone. Of course, like most teenage girls, I had a very private diary which I wrote in every evening. Nobody better snoop!  

Just like when I was a kid, the storms and tornado sirens scared me, a senior adult. Being alone in the house, without my husband or my pal Buddy the beagle, added to my discomfort.

When sirens start screaming, thunder crashes and lightening flashes in the dark sky, it’s natural for kids as well as adults to imagine frightening thoughts. Dark stormy nights can be scary, especially if you’ve experienced the destruction storms can cause. TV has shown the results of tornados touching down to wipe out homes, even towns. Nobody and nothing is safe from tornadoes.  

Enjoy our glorious spring weather of blooming trees, daffodils and tulips; smell the redbuds and lilacs, but be alert of how destructive spring storms can be on dark and stormy nights.

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.