Page 35 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

The next summer, my father drove us to Miami Road on Jacksonville’s Southside. We
went into a store where he bought my brother and me each a second-hand bicycle. I
often rode it down to Timuquana Road to fish at McGirts Creek. With the line and cork
floating in the glassy water, I would watch the towering cumulus clouds fill the sky as
the temperature climbed into the 90’s. When the clouds grew dark and threatening, I
hopped on my bike and tried to beat the rain to our house. On a couple of occasions, I
heard the large raindrops striking the pavement behind me as I turned up onto the
driveway and into the garage with its open door.

One day I rode my bike about 23 miles way down Roosevelt Blvd, past Orange Park
and through Green Cove Springs and onto State Road 16 to see my father at work at
Lee Field. When I pedaled up to his workplace, he was really surprised as he saw me
peddle through the wide doorway into his shop. He soon gave me a tour of the base and
even took me to the “Link Trainer” building. The Link Trainer was a flight simulator
which looked like a miniature plane. It had controls and instruments with a hood that
could cover the cockpit to teach pilots orientation problems when flying in the dark or
in clouds. If a pilot did not learn that, they could lose the true feeling between down and
up which could cause them to fly into the ground when they felt like they were flying
level.

On October 20, 1944, I was excited to hear on the radio that we would be having a
tropical storm. Around 9 AM, the wind and rain started to increase. We soon
discovered the rainwater was blowing into the house around the windows and under the
kitchen door. All morning we did nothing but watch the rain, wipe the window sills and
mop the floor. The weather bulletin on the radio said that the wind and rain would cease
around noon when the center of the storm arrived. They said not to go outside during
the calm because the other half would soon bring dangerous winds from the opposite
direction. We waited for three hours and it still was calm outside. Finally, when a little
breeze came up, we went outside and held up a sheet by the corners to feel the force of
the wind. The second half of the storm was not as fierce as the first part. Afterwards, we
learned that a power line had fallen across a car in Venetia. The driver was electrocuted
when he stepped out of the car to remove the wire. For months afterward, we saw all of
the young pine trees still leaning towards the southwest because of the strong northeast
gales.

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