On The Fly

Thunderstorm Video “Looks like rain up ahead,” said my brother Rodger as we left Canton, IL. headed west on the Canton/Cuba blacktop. With a few taps on her phone Lori checked the weather channel, “There are wide bands of thunderstorms headed our way.” Within seconds we were engulfed in a blinding downpour of rain interspersed with pea-sized hail. The car was barraged, the noise overwhelming, as if being shot at with a machine-gun. Instantly we were in complete whiteout conditions - adrenaline shot through my system, my first reaction, check the rear-view mirror, pull over, we’re going to get hit from the rear! I was not driving. We went from 60 miles per hour to almost a complete stop right in the middle of the road . . .  This all began rather innocently early on a Sunday morning while visiting my folks in Cuba, IL. That morning, sitting on the porch, the weather had become unseasonably warm, a blustering wind, bending the trees under its force. Overhead the sky w...