Family Memory (XXI) – The Storm

I was young when this happened. We’d gone down to Keokuk for the weekend–1974 or 75, I think–off the top of my head, I don’t remember if this was late spring or during the summer.

It was evening and I remember being on the couch next to Grandma (Haas). Papa (Haas) and my dad had gone out on the porch to watch the storm–at the time, the porch had a roof but around its pillars, it was open to the environment–sometimes that meant sideways rain would drench the porch (snow, too). The photo says there were two other people out on the porch, but I don’t remember that. If so, it would’ve been my mom and Uncle Mike.

I remember sitting there trying to read (there was no cable TV and with a storm, reception via the bunny-ears sucked) and it grew too dark to do it–since it wasn’t near bedtime, that tells you something about the storm.

Then lightning hit–chopped the big tree down out front of the house and it crashed onto the porch, basically destroying it. I remember the emotion of it–people scared until they realized everyone was fine. That’s all I remember of the tree hit.

Insurance paid for the porch to be rebuilt–but this time, they made it better by enclosing it with glass…and used that as the point to air-condition the house. It’s something you take for granted now (A/C)…but I realize now as an adult that installing A/C was expensive–so that installing it meant my grandfather finally felt financially secure, something that (I think) worried him for those first twenty years after coming to the United States.