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ON THE FRONT LINES WITH FREAK
by Freak / Chicago
Radio Personality
ME Verses MOTHER NATURE
ROUND 1 ~ Spring 1978
Every spring I take the severe weather class “Skywarn” offered by the
National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration just to learn what’s new in the world of violent storms.
Growing up in rural McHenry county and now living in rural Will County,
I’m like the dude that’s been struck by lightning fifty times in the
John Candy/Dan Akroyd movie The Great Outdoors, in tune with the
barometric pressure.
My first real brush with the wrath of nature came on a quiet Sunday
morning back in April of ’78.
My buddy Richie and I were fishing on Fox River in my grampa’s 12-foot
Alumacraft enjoying some smoked trout and cold Meister Braus.
By mid-morning a steady wind had kicked up out of the southwest, which
is always dangerous weather-wise, but we paid little attention as the
choppier waters stirred up the Perch.
Sitting in a tree-lined stretch of the river, we didn’t see the front
coming in until it rolled right over us. The temp instantly dropped a
few degrees and the winds cranked up their act as rain started to fall.
We slammed our beers and started packing up gear when we noticed a
siren. It was faint, drifting down the river on the wind making it
impossible to guess how far away it actually was or to determine if it
was a storm warning or a fire call.
Either way it was a siren, rain was falling, and we were at least twenty
minutes from home so it was time to go.
Richie started pulling on the Evinrude and sure enough, flooded the
bitch leaving us stranded for a few more minutes. I was handing him a
fresh beer when another siren and possibly a third joined the chorus
down river. We both knew it was a storm warning, so Richie started
pulling on the rip chord again but, with the exception of a few sputters
and some blue smoke, it wasn’t ready to do a damn thing.
Since I’d already pulled up the anchor, we’d drifted down river a bit
and closer to the center as we approached a bend. Looking back, we could
easily see a monster of a storm looming just to the south of us and it
was clearly churning.
I shoved Richie aside to have a go at the motor when the hail started to
fall. Marble to golf ball sized hail began pelting us as the skies grew
darker and winds got stronger.
Richie told me we were gonna have to flip the boat over and hide
underneath it, which sounded like the most retarded thing in the world
to me until I took a solid whack in the cheek from something flying
through the air.
He jumped in the water which turned out to be just over four feet deep
and got up next to the boat. As I put all my weight on one side of the
boat he pushed it from the underside and it flipped pretty easily. We
both ducked underneath along with the tackle boxes and the cooler which
were floating in the water next to us.
We walked our shelter a bit closer to shore where it was easier to stand
and hunkered down as the wind, rain, and hail continued its assault on
us. I cracked a beer and handed one to Richie as a dull roar arose to
our west. We both popped our heads out from under the boat to find
green/yellow skies that resembled pond water with small patches of
clouds moving in all directions.
The clouds to our south were coming north, straight at us while the
clouds to our north were going west meaning we were directly under a
wall cloud with some serious circulation.
We ducked back under the boat as the roar to our west got louder along
with the sounds of snapping timber.
I’m not sure how long the whole episode lasted but it seemed like an
eternity. The action died down fairly quickly and as we poked our heads
out once again we were greeted with a steady rain and mild winds. We
walked the boat to shore where we beached it and walked home from there.
The tornado had missed us by less than a quarter of a mile as it cut a
path through mostly farmland and forest along the western side of the
Fox River destroying a few cottages which were mostly boarded up since
Memorial Day weekend hadn’t rolled around yet.
We’d survived a brush with death only to face the wrath of my Grampa who
was equally as frightening when he got a good look at his waterlogged
Evinrude.
Author’s Note: At the time the events of this story occurred, I was 11
and Richie was 14.
** Further ramblings on the internet –
www.MySpace.com/SouthlandFreak.
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