My fascination with clouds goes all the way back to my childhood when my grandmother and my mother sang this song to me…

Two little clouds one summer’s day
Went flying through the sky.
They went so fast they bumped their heads, And both began to cry.
Old Father Sun looked out and said, “Oh, never mind my dears,
I’ll send my little fairy folk
To dry your falling tears.”
One fairy came in violet,
And one in indigo,
In blue, green, yellow, orange, red,– They made a pretty row.
They wiped the cloud tears all away, And then, from out the sky,
Upon a line the sunbeams made They hung their gowns to dry.

There was something so sweet about it or maybe it was the way they sang it. I can still hear them.

We didn’t have a lot to do in the summer in those days. We went to the swimming pool and I played golf from a young age, but there was a lot of time on our hands. We didn’t have air conditioning until I was in grade school…horrors! Actually, I wouldn’t trade air conditioning for much, so I’m not yearning for those good old days. We didn’t have television for a long time and, when we finally got it, it didn’t come on until late afternoon for the first few years. How old am I anyway?

We spent time in the yard and the neighborhood. We played workup with however many kids we could find and a softball and bat. We got stung by wasps and looked for earthworms, picked the flowers from the trumpet vine, sucked on honeysuckle and got into poison ivy. We looked for fossils in the gravel on the driveway since ours wasn’t paved yet. We looked for four leaf clovers and laid on blankets under the trees to stay cool. And we stared up at the sky, thinking and dreaming. What a luxury that time was and we didn’t even know it.

The clouds changed shapes as we watched them move across the sky. There were bears and dogs and monsters and angels. A canvas for our imaginations.

I took that fascination into my teens. Once, when I was about 16, I had a date with a guy who was a class leader…quite a deal to snag a date with him. I asked him about the clouds and he looked at me blankly. That was the end of whatever chance of infatuation there was with him. I couldn’t imagine being with someone who didn’t see anything in the clouds.

The first time I flew I was kind of disappointed with the inside of the clouds when I discovered they really are just fluffs of air. But then that became another fascination. How do they look so thick when there is so little to them.

Yesterday was a glorious summer cloud day, which we get when the heat comes in. They don’t show on radar, just popping up out of nowhere. Still fascinating.

You start with a cloudless day, a bright clear blue sky…

Suddenly you notice clouds exploding all around you…

They develop little wispy areas to soften the thickness…

And there is always the effect of the sunshine from beside them, around them, through them as the day goes on…

Obviously, I haven’t forgotten how to entertain myself outside. No matter where I see them, whether it’s in the city, out on the plains, up in the mountains, near lakes and oceans, or from the air, I always stop to watch. Clouds still make me smile, stir my imagination, and are just as mysterious and magical as I’ve known them to be since I was little. Heads up…don’t miss the great shows Nature sends us.