Thunder and Marshall Moments

1 · October on the Odometer

I left South Carolina in the bright crackle of early October 2024 with only one instruction drifting from the porch where Brenda waved me off: “Be home by Christmas.” I promised, thumb to the brim like a half-baked cowboy, then pointed Josie toward the Blue Ridge escarpment.

The Hope & Generosity Tour had no sponsors beyond a prayer and a promise of help from the folks at GoWesty should I get jammed up on the side of the road in NoWheresville and a grease-stained envelope of road money. The route was a loose noose: Carolina crests into Ohio for the Bob Evans Farm Festival, west across Indiana soybean, Illinois prairie, then angling south-west through Missouri before dropping into Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and at last closing the loop back to the Atlantic pine barrens before December twenty-fifth. A harvest season ride, three months long, cut from the cloth of wanderlust and stitched with Brenda’s Christmas deadline.

By the middle of that first month, I had already rolled north over fog-caught Appalachians, watched maples kindle like match heads, and drifted across the Ohio River into a drizzle that smelled of sausage grease and funnel-cake oil. I shook hands with a hundred strangers, scribbled half as many stories, then pivoted west, driving days defined by corn stubble and radio static. Indiana blurred, Illinois flattened, and somewhere beyond the Kaskaskia the land began to breathe deeper—the long, slow diaphragm of the Missouri prairie rising to meet a sky big enough to lose your name in.

That same sky was busy assembling trouble.

2 · Barometers and Borderlines

On a late October morning, the barometer in my head dropped two notches somewhere west of Sedalia. The air thickened, the horizon hazed. High cirrus stretched above like pulled taffy, and the wind veered south, damp and urgent. Longtime plainsfolk can feel such shifts in their knee joints; I felt it in the Vanagon’s steering, a subtle wander as gusts toyed with her squared shoulders.

I rumbled north on U.S. 65, that old freight trail connecting Arkansas to Iowa, and the country opened wide: soybeans already harvested, stalks pale as straw; corn sheared to ankle-high stubs; the ground waiting for winter’s first freeze. Grain elevators squatted at lonely crossroads, each with its own rust-striped water tower proclaiming a hopeful town: Houstonia, Malta Bend, Gilliam.

Forty miles short of Marshall, the sky dimmed as though someone had laid a blacksmith’s apron over the sun. A low rumble vibrated through the floor pan. The weather app, lagging by minutes, pinged a severe-storm warning for Saline County. I thumbed the notification away; there are moments when silicon feels like gossip compared to the ancient honesty of thunder.

3 · The Great Midwestern Overture

A Midwestern thunderstorm is a carnival of the elemental, and this one began with the classic overture: air gone electric, hair lifting on the knuckles that gripped the wheel; a smell of tin and clover and something metallic—ozone, they tell you, but it might as well be destiny.

First came those scout drops—big, warm, hesitant splats on the windshield—followed by a hush so complete I could hear the fan belt whine. Then the deluge of a billion drops hit like sheet iron. Rain thick enough to shave with slammed onto Josie’s roof, drowning the wipers on the second pass. Visibility shrank to mere feet; ditches on either side filled within seconds, water racing like newborn creeks toward some unseen river.

Lightning cracked overhead so near the white flash lit the van’s cabin, freezing the world frame-by-frame. After each burst the landscape vanished to ink, and the thunder that followed felt amphibious—part sky, part earth, part heartbeat.

I eased onto the shoulder, hazard lights blinking futile Morse code against the curtain of water. There we sat, machine and man, waiting for the sky to finish singing. Inside, the air smelled of damp upholstery and my own quickened pulse. Outside, the Midwest flexed its power: a chorus of wind and rain, voice of land too flat to deflect anything heaven decides to drop.

Thirty minutes—that’s what it took for the squall to pass. The thunder rolled east, the rain throttled back to a ragtime patter, and sunlight muscled through ragged cloud seams like gold syrup. Steam drifted off the pavement in gauzy banners. Every leaf from every sycamore along the fencerow glittered with new polish. The land looked rinsed, rebaptized.

I turned the key. Josie barked once and settled into her work-song idle. We pulled back onto 65, tires hissing through sheet water, and I thought: If that isn’t church, what is?

4 · First Sight of Marshall

Ten miles later a green sign announced MARSHALL CITY LIMITS. Elevation eight hundred ninety-three. Population ten thousand three hundred-odd, give or take the last census and the next funeral.

Established 1839, seat of Saline County since ‘40, and named for Chief Justice John Marshall—these are facts you can Google in less time than it takes to sip cold coffee. But facts alone won’t nudge your heart the way the town coming into view does: a water tower announcing its presence to the world, grain silos shining damply, and beyond them the faint spire of a courthouse clocktower rising above a quilt of oak canopies.

I rolled downtown on Arrow Street, easing brakes still wet from storm water. The square introduced itself by sound first: the stutter of tires over brick pavers, the faint chime of the courthouse bell marking half-past two, and the slosh of run-off gurgling through cast-iron street drains.

Marshall’s historic core is four tight blocks of late-19th-century brick—rows of two- and three-story buildings in Italianate, Romanesque, and plain utilitarian Midwestern styles. There’s a display case fogging with steam as new trays of cinnamon rolls cool; a barber shop, pole spinning since Eisenhower, and a used appliance sales/service center selling GE refrigerators alongside replacement belts for Maytag washers built before disco.

The Saline County Courthouse, anchored at the center, is a square limestone mass with arched windows and a copper roof that weather has kissed to green over the decades. I circled the block, tires rumbling like distant thunder across 140-year-old bricks, then found a parking slot beside a faded mural of Jim the Wonder Dog—Marshall’s canine prophet of Depression-era fame, who allegedly understood commands in several languages and once picked the winner of the Kentucky Derby. A plaque beneath the mural invited visitors to stroll a small memorial garden two blocks north. 

I stepped out into air that smelled of petrichor and yeast—storm and fresh bread commingled. The sky overhead still growled now and again, but the worst had marched off toward the low bluffs of the Missouri River thirty miles distant.

5 · History Underfoot

Walking the square after a thunderstorm is like walking a museum after closing: everything hushed, polished, more vivid for being damp. The courthouse lawn gleamed verdant; puddles in sidewalk seams mirrored the clocktower. I paused at a bronze marker noting The Battle of Marshall, October 13 1863, when Confederate raider J. O. Shelby slammed into 1,800 Union soldiers garrisoned here, ending his 40-day “Great Raid” across Missouri. Casualties were few, the plaque assured, but bullet scars left brilliant traces and still freckle limestone on the northwest corner of the courthouse if you know where to look. 

Across the street, Baity Hall of Missouri Valley College loomed like a red-brick castle beyond an avenue of sugar maples. Founded 1889—older than the Model T, younger than the light bulb—the college brought Presbyterian earnestness and a rotating infusion of youth to this farm town. Its bell tower tolled on the quarter hour, more measured than the courthouse chime, as though academia keeps its own calendar separate from the county clerk’s. 

The railroad once sliced two blocks south, carrying carloads of corn, hogs, and milled timber to St. Louis and beyond. Now only a weed-choked spur remains, the main line rerouted or abandoned. But the grain economy persists: thirty-foot augers hummed at the edge of town where trucks lined up, cabs still flecked with storm mud, waiting to dump yellow harvest into concrete silos.

I ducked inside S&P’s Diner—smell of bacon grease and dish soap—and choose a stool at the gleaming stainless steel counter that sits on a red and white checked vinyl tile floor. A gallery of children’s crayon artwork plastered behind the counter. Before I’d even settled in a waitress had a mug and a pot of coffee at the ready, as if she’d read my mind. I nodded and she poured. 

“You ain’t from around here,” she said with a head nod toward Josie, “but you beat the rain, so the day’s lookin’ up.” We chatted about the weather, like all Missourians do; she pronounced the storm “a whopper” and predicted good yields for wheat because thunderstorms “stir nitrogen in the soil.” I nodded as though I had known that all along.

I ordered a staple, biscuits and sausage gravy; it tasted like gratitude. I thanked Donna, paid in damp bills, stepped back onto the street just as the clouds parted further, letting sunlight bounce off wet brick until the square glowed like a memory.

6 · Jim the Wonder Dog and Other Legends

Curiosity lured me to the Jim the Wonder Dog Memorial Garden two blocks off the square. The rain-washed sidewalk smelled of boxwood. Bronze Jim sat frozen mid-point, gazing at some eternal quail. Children’s chalk sketches ringed the base: rainbows, paw prints, the word “WONDER” in careful capitals.

Legend says Jim could obey commands in foreign tongues, signal winners at baseball games, and pick a lady’s favorite flower from a bouquet by reading her mind. Whether dog or hoax or something in between, the town treats him like a departed uncle who once pulled quarters from behind your ear: skeptical outsiders can scoff, but the locals know magic when they’ve lived beside it. Each May they host Wonder Dog Day, parade and all, proving that Marshall refuses to cede wonder to the cynicism of larger cities. 

I sat on a bench, letting sunshine wick moisture from my clothes, and realized storms and legends share a kinship: both arrive uninvited, both leave an electricity in the air, and both remind you that not everything needs explanation.

7 · Dusk After Cleansing

As evening approached, rooftops steamed like loaves fresh from an oven, and the air gathered the smell of lawns mowed, then rained on. A church bell called vespers somewhere west of the square; diesel semis downshifted on Highway 65, heading for sedate motel lots on the far edge of town.

I drove Josie out College Street past the stadium lights of Missouri Valley—purple lavenders of sunset glancing off aluminum bleachers—then looped north toward Indian Foothills Park, 325 acres of oak woodland rolling above a lagoon still rippling from afternoon deluge. Families in pickup beds tossed bread to ducks; high-school couples lingered under a covered shelter seasoning their talk with shy laughter. Under the picnic pavilion, city workers had propped surplus sandbags—insurance against the Lamine River’s next tantrum.

Daylight slipped behind the western treeline, and the cicadas revved up like chainsaws left idling in the dark. I parked at a bluff and watched the last scraps of cloud smear lavender, salmon, violet across a sky newly scrubbed by the storm. Town lights flickered on: the courthouse clock face, marquee bulbs outside the Martin Community Center, sodium-vapor glow from the grain elevator where night crews rattled augers.

The thunderstorm that had bullied the prairie just hours earlier now rumbled low on the eastern horizon, a discontented stomach moving toward St. Louis. Its backside flashed occasional heat lightning—silent fireworks winking farewell. In its wake, Marshall exhaled: gutters cleared, dust settled, the hard edges of drought softened by a million thirsting roots.

8 · October Ledger

I wrote that night by headlamp in Josie’s cramped bunk:

Day 26 on the road. Mileage 1,782. Storm over Saline County baptized both land and traveler. Town of Marshall: brick, history, starch-pressed courtesy. Thunder swept the sky; bakery swept cinnamon across the square. Remember the smell of rain and yeast together—like communion wafers and wine of the ordinary.

I noted also: Looking for someone I haven’t met yet. Because stories travel faster than vans, and I’d heard rumors of a woman in this town who stitched generations together with little more than crayons, soft rebuke, and bottomless patience. But meeting her would have to wait for morning.

The storm had left its lullaby in my ears—drip of branches, soft gurgle of water under the curb. Josie creaked, settled. I drifted to sleep imagining the Midwest always breathing like this: inhaling storm, exhaling quiet; cracking wide open in lightning only to close ranks again under a quilt of star-shot darkness.

9 · Sunrise Over Baity Hall

Morning of October 23 sprouted with a cardinal’s bark and a periwinkle sky still streaked by thin cirrus, as if the night shift of clouds had refused to leave. I brewed camp coffee on the van’s butane stove—two scoops of grounds, water left hot by habit—and sipped while watching sunrise gild the limestone angles of Baity Hall at Missouri Valley. The bell rang seven crisp notes; a girl slid by on a longboard clutching a calculus text bigger than her torso. Tractors already hummed in distant fields, the harvest urgency renewed by yesterday’s rain.

I packed notebook, camera, a pouch of colored pencils someone had gifted at the Indiana state line, and pointed myself back toward the courthouse square. The world smelled clay-rich and newborn. Every puddle mirrored the sky, as though the ground had grown eyes overnight.

10 · Into the Day of Promise

Past S&P’s Diner where the waitress waved a coffee pot like a semaphore signal for returning wanderers. A bread truck idled unloading racks of sourdough. Two men in seed-company caps argued amiably beside a flatbed piled with soybean sacks. Everyday commerce resumed in gears newly greased by rain.

I scribbled details: barn-red Coke thermometer on the feed-store wall, chalkboard outside the library advertising a Wednesday quilting circle, the faint smell of distillate when a CSX freight growled south on the remaining spur.

The route ahead—west toward Kansas then south through the Plains—waited patiently, but I lingered. There was still someone here I needed to find, someone whose legend, I was told, could match any thunderstorm for power though she spoke softer than drizzle. The morning sun rose behind the courthouse dome, haloing the weather vane. I checked my watch, adjusted the strap on my backpack, and turned up College Street toward the elementary school, heart drumming a rhythm learned in rain.

I had rolled into Marshall, Missouri, looking for someone I hadn’t met yet—and the town, fresh-scrubbed and steaming under a hatchling sun, seemed ready to make introductions.

It’s also the place called “home,” by Gloria Evans, a saint of woman who performs miracles on a daily basis.