A Rainy Thanksgiving

The Daily Llama / Blogroll, Family HIstory / November 27, 2019 / 0 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey Everyone;

Here’s hoping you’ll soon be sitting at a table with family and friends filling your tummies with delectable delights and indulging in thoughts filled with happy memories, momentous plans, and grateful feelings on this special day – one for acknowledging the kindnesses of others and how fortunate we are to be enjoy the benefits of Life’s largesse.

We here in California are doubly thankful because not only are the fires over for now – it’s Raining — as we type!

Which….of course brings back memories of the first time I got rained on. It was a long time ago, way before TV, Twitter, and Taco Bell, but one could get just as wet. It was during WW II and I was with Mom & Dad at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center just outside of Chicago near Lake Michigan. Dad was in the process of “shipping out” to the USS Gilligan which would soon be caught up in the middle of the war in the Pacific.

I was standing alone just outside one of the large training halls staring up at the sky at an airplane, its engines roaring loudly as it flew over the lake towing behind it a long dark object. Suddenly the sounds of explosions – the rat-tat-tat I would subsequently associate with anti-aircraft guns – reverberated in the air followed by puffs of smoke in the sky near the dark object. It was a “target sled” I would learn later, and the shore batteries were conducting a training exercise.

I watched as the maneuvers progressed when suddenly there was a sharp cracking sound that seemed to reverberate across the darkening sky followed abruptly by some wet “stuff” that fell out of the sky and onto the nearby pavement then began splashing on my face and clothes.

I recall thinking as I glanced up at the vanishing aircraft, “Wow, this is cool! It must be coming from that plane”, associating it with the sounds I’d heard and the wet stuff I’d been doused with. The next thing I knew, Ma grabbed me up in her arms and carried me back inside the training hall to safety. I tried to tell her what I had just seen – gesticulating wildly toward the ceiling of the hall and uttering “boom, boom” [or sounds to that effect], but unfortunately then – as now – I had trouble expressing myself coherently while both she and Dad busily attempted to dry my face and shake the moisture from my cap and jacket. Just like in King Kong – “The airplanes did it” – I would later recount.

Anyway, Have a Great Thanksgiving and Go Lions!

Love, hugs and kisses for everyone…

Your Kazkar.

First published on or about 28 November 2019.