Another Day in the Country: Just clouds
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
Rarely is a Kansas sky devoid of clouds in some shape or form as our ever-present breeze scuttles them over the horizon. Kansas clouds are glorious exhibitions.
While I've always been a cloud-watcher, and rather prided myself in being able to see rain, wind, tornadoes, and hail on the map of the sky, I felt myself a complete novice in comparison to the people in my town. As a newcomer, I was amused by the forecast of "tornadic" weather a comin'. Of course, I wouldn't have been amused if the tornado had materialized!
Perhaps my penchant for watching the sky is partly because I grew up in a very conservative religion with the second coming of Jesus as a major tenant. I'd teethed on predictions of when this event would occur and knew all the signs of the end. I also knew the prophecy that said a cloud would appear, in the east I believe, and it would be about the size of a man's hand, growing larger and larger until it was plain to see that those clouds were really angels and Jesus Himself was riding those clouds of glory.
Growing up in Kansas, it was a rare sight indeed to find one small cloud in the great blue sky, especially a small cloud in the east coming our direction. I watched for them! And when I'd see a possible candidate my little heart was filled with childish trepidation. Mesmerized, holding my breath, waiting for the cloud to grow bigger, I'd scan the screen of my soul for misdeeds and wonder if I'd gotten them all properly forgiven. I was quite frankly scared of small clouds and quite relieved when little clouds out there on the horizon blew away.
My children loved cloud watching, but alas they grew up in California where one's panoramic view is limited by tree covered mountains, valleys full of grapes, high-rise cities, and extremely crooked roads. When clouds would blow up from the sea over our Napa Valley hills, my girls would imagine dragons huffing and puffing, great flocks of sheep, and beautiful maidens with flowing hair.
As an artist, I've always been fascinated by clouds — and a little intimidated. In my opinion, they are one of the most difficult things to paint, so when Lanore came to art class over in Marion and produced this dark, stormy, majestic picture of clouds and said, "I'm going to paint this," I sighed — internally, of course, since I didn't want to discourage her.
I probably said something like, "Go for it," but I had my trepidation. I knew how hard it was to capture this particular natural phenomena. Luckily, my student was tenacious because she painted those clouds over and over and over again until she got them the way she wanted. We laughed and said she'd gotten her master's degree in clouds by the time she finished.
My sister took our friend Tony out riding the other evening and true to form, our Kansas clouds were putting on quite a show. "Just look at those clouds," Tony said and then he chuckled, "Do you know what we kids used to call them?" Of course, we didn't.
"We called them ice cream." He laughed again at the memory. "We thought they looked like great big scoops of vanilla ice cream." I could just see those little tow-headed Meyer boys gazing up at the sky with their small mouths watering, for the sweet taste of cold ice cream.
It's another day in the country. We live and learn. I'll never look at clouds the same again because, for me now, on a hot summer day, they won't be tornadoes, the second coming, dragons, or flocks of sheep. They'll always be ice cream!
