Most of the memorable things in my life have been strange and bizarre...
Will highlight two..
When I was young, about 6, I dreamt for the first time in color. It was the most vivid drem I believe I have had in my life (and this was close to four decades ago). I dreamed that Dorothy Gale, from the Wizard of Oz was having a picnic with my family in our back yard. I had only seen the movie once before, when I was five, but knew it was her. As we were eating, my older brother (14) said "do you hear a jet?". I ran around to our front yard and saw a tornado bearing down on our house - I woke up. I told my mom about it and she said I had nothing to worry about because tornadoes didn't come into our town (Rapid City, SD).
The next weekend was father's day and we were all eating on our picnic table in the back yard. My brother turns to me and says "Do you hear a jet?". He runs into the house and turns on the TV. He starts yelling something about a tornado working its way through town. My family runs to the front yard, and sure enough, here is a tornado about 8 blocks away coming right for our block. My mom is in hysterics, telling us we need to get inside. Then I notice that the entire block is standing in their front yards, staring.
The tornado gets one block away, right behind a church across the street from us and we hear it strike a transformer behind the church. The sparks and crackling were all over the place. That is when I looked up into the sky. Above the block to our south was the eye of the tornado. I could look up into it and see a small patch of blue sky. The tornado had split in half!
After a bit, the tornado re-assembled and moved AWAY from our block. It actually taken a V path through town, doing damage ahead of the time it hit the transformer and after it.
In the history of the city, it is one of only two tornadoes that has hit Rapid City.
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I was a sleepwalker as a kid, mostly because my dad played in a small jazz combo on weekends and I think subconciously I would worry. One morning I woke up with dried mud in my sheets. I asked my mom what happened last night and she said she didn't think I would remember. I walked out in the pouring rain to our car in the driveway and sat in it. When my mom followed me out, she asked me what I was doing, and, still asleep, I said i was waiting for dad.
She told me to get back inside to bed, and I proceeded to walk around outside for a bit before I got back to bed.
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