Rollin', rollin', rollin'

By admin

I was doing some writing just before midnight awhile ago, when I slowly became aware of a persistent loud noise coming from outside the window. It sounded like a squadron of bombers in an old WWII movie, so I went out on the back patio to see if we were under attack.

A thunderstorm was moving through our desert valley and the rainy sky was alive with lightning: air-to-air strikes, well above the first layer of clouds. It was as if an enormous group of high-altitude paparazzi were trying to photograph an earthbound movie star. The individual flashes weren't clearly visible, but a quick brightening would emanate from one segment of the sky, followed by another... and another... and another, in every direction, at one- or two-second intervals.

There was never one big "boom," but thousands of small thunderclaps echoed off the mountains which surround my home, and the individual bursts of sound merged into a continuous roar.

How did I ever arrive at this ripe age without knowing what the phrase "rolling thunder" actually meant?

The spectacular maelstrom continued for nearly an hour.