Thunderstorm Days

In the early 1960s, my mother served a full-time volunteer mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon Church), in what was then called the Greater Far East Mission. She served for roughly six months in Hong Kong, and then spent the remaining eighteen months of her mission in of the Phillipines. Her voice was younger then, but unmistakable.

July 19, 1964

How I’ve loved the rides along Highway 54—especially on the thunderstorm days of July! The skies, the countryside—everything—seems to feed my imagination with all sorts of beauty, rest, or excitement, depending on my mood and theirs. These days, the sky to the South is exciting, piled high with thunderstorms or black, with white, whispy clouds swirling along close to the ground. The flat land above the highway reminds me of what I would imagine a misty England scene to be on a rainy day—all lush green under a dripping sky with patches of darker green where thickets of bamboo or pampas grass have sprung up. A few thin Brahma cattle generally graze there alongside a caribou or two. It’s strange to see such bony cattle in the midst of what looks like abundance. (Reminds me of the 7 lean cattle in Pharoah’s dream.) I used to wonder if they all had worms, but, apparently, it’s just a matter of the wrong kind of grass.

Rain means suffocation in the back of the bus. All the wooden windows bang up, and the breezes stop, but the smoking goes on, regardless. No more thoughts of a misty English countryside. Mid-bus is a fair place to be this time of year. There’s but a sparking rain curtain over the door that waves in the wind and occasionally draws aside to give us a few of the floods outside or splash us all—love it.