In case you hadn't picked up on the subtle visual cues it has been raining for days and days. Looking back in Jer Zone history it was wet and green this time last year as well. Hmm.

I'm not sure if this Nebraska boy will ever get used to so much rain. Weather out west was pretty simple: the day starts sunny, little clouds blossom into bigger clouds as the day progresses, late afternoon sees cumuli towering to the west, and come evening all hell breaks loose. Ominous dark clouds, thunder, lightning, gusting wind, heavy sheets of rain, and ten minutes later it's all over.

If it hailed you might sweep off of the sidewalk and uncover the tomatoes. Tornado sized storms might last a bit longer and cause more concern. In any case afterwards you'd enjoyed a brief respite from the heat and fresh air. Sometimes the clouds rolled on by and there wasn't any rain, sometimes they ran a little later than usual, but it was a rare storm that parked overhead and dumped rain for days.

As a teenager I worked part time at my dad's radio station. It was a small town station licensed to be on the air only when the sun was up. That's because the radio signal travels further at night and it would interfere with a distant station on the same frequency. My announcing slot was after high school, which meant I had about an hour show in the winter and four or five hours in the summer. My other jobs included janitor twice a week, cutting commercials, and being a gofer when the chief engineer was in town.

Actually there was one other brief job: chasing storms with Rhonda. Rhonda was the news director, a tall, aggressive, smart as a whip daughter of a truck driver who didn't take any shit from anyone or anything. When we'd get a report of a funnel cloud Rhonda and I would pile into a beat up old Rambler station wagon, fire up the Marti remote transmitter, and head out to find it. The idea was that we'd get close enough to see the tornado and broadcast its position, presumably to give early warning to our faithful listeners.

That was the theory but I don't think it matched up with Rhonda's intentions. Rhonda, near as I can tell, wanted to count the swirling blades of grass or perhaps ride the tornado for a while. Wouldn't that be a story!

There we were, screaming down Nebraska dirt roads at ungodly speeds, the Rambler bouncing like a cheap mattress, static pouring out of the radio, all the while the menacing hue of a tornado cloud loomed up ahead. Rhonda swore at the car to go faster while I silently prayed that it ran out of gas.

It's not that I never drove like an idiot and took stupid chances. I had the market cornered on stupidity. It's just that I always did it for fun. There's crazy and then there's crazy.

We almost caught one once. As Rhonda's luck would have it the tornado changed track such that we were not only on a paved road, but also going downhill, which provided the extra burst of speed she needed. Closer and closer we drew, Rhonda yelling into the microphone like a war reporter and I'm bracing legs against the metal dashboard pleading with her and preparing for the end. Rain washed over the car so fat and heavy the wipers couldn't keep up, we seemed to be fishtailing through a lake surrounded by the roar of a rushing train. I couldn't see a thing. Rhonda must have been driving on mad instinct alone.

And then there was a most peculiar sound and feeling. I had no idea what it was, but Rhonda must have because she launched into a stream of words I could never dare print. Flat tire. She couldn't maintain speed, no matter how she tried, and the tornado pulled away, swirling off to eat someone's grain silo or trailer house. We didn't have a spare.

Thank God.