Iannuccilli: The Excitement of a Storm

Iannuccilli: The Excitement of a Storm

When I was a kid, I loved the big storms. They were exciting; more than just a day out of school. Of course, now that I am older and see the climate-change-induced devastation from fires, floods, earthquakes, etc., around the world, enhanced by global warming, I have changed my mind. Why was it so thrilling back then?

I remember Hurricane Carol in 1954. Threatening, whistling winds and snapping tree limbs were an adventure as I watched from my third-floor windows on Wealth Avenue. Yes, I will admit that I was frightened enough to scurry away every now and then. However, it was not long before I was up and hustling back from window to window, watching, not so secretly hoping, for a groaning tree to uproot.

I remember walking the neighborhood after that hurricane, fascinated by the fallen trees, stepping over downed wires, calling my friend to come out so that we could marvel at the damage. We did not equate it to another’s misfortune, and I don’t remember a tree collapsing a house, smashing a car or killing someone.

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I had a paper route. That afternoon, after packing my papers updating news of the storm, as I walked across Academy Avenue to deliver them, a number of eager drivers stopped, “Hey Kid, can I have one of those papers? I’ll give you a big tip.”

I was straight-laced. “Sorry, but no. They’re for my customers.”

Even more exciting was to be at the Atlantic shore during a severe summer storm.  My parents rented a cottage across the street from the beach, so we had a front-row seat to tempests that brewed on the horizon, promising nothing but winds and surf to pound walls and disorder beaches. Torrential rain, approaching in sheets with the rhythm of the wind, was in attack mode. Lightning streaked the darkened sky. At storm’s end, we begged to go out, to walk to the rocks, a short distance away.  We roamed the beach looking for treasures from the ocean’s bottom, or collecting a new and different set of shells.

The air was still swirling, raising sheets of sand that attacked our faces.  When I finally got home, I was wet, shivering and happy. Why?

Maybe it was the change. Maybe we had too many expected, bright, sunny days, and we needed that change. Maybe it was the adventure. The infrequent dreary weather of a storm did not make us sad, because, in addition to new experiences at the shore, those were the days we went to the movies in town.

A storm brought adventure, excitement, anticipation. The concern for its effect was for the adults.

Though I often looked at my father’s book of the ’38 Hurricane, saw its devastation, maybe understood the loss of lives and homes,  realizing it was more than a picture book, it really did not compute for a kid.

Several things have changed. The storms, now called extreme, are more frequent, seem more devastating, and certainly are more frightening.

And, I am older.

 

Ed Iannuccilli is the author of "Growing up Italian" and "What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner?" and "My Story Continues" can be found here.