Rain

It rained yesterday. I was in the car. I wanted to pull over, get out and walk in the sunshine that sparkled with droplets of water. It wouldn't last long. I didn't  . . . pull over. Instead, I rolled my window down and let the cool beads prickle my skin. Fantastic!
I've always loved rain and to be outside in it. No matter how dramatic the weather - if there was rain, I ran outside to play. Eventually, I suppose my Mother got tired of drying my clothes and around the age of five I simply put on my swimsuit before I went out if it was a tolerable temperature. If not, I wore rubber boots over my shoes that chafed my ankles and shins. The boots were clunky and made a difficult job of walking. Running was tempting disaster. Imagine trying to run with each of your feet stuck in a gallon jug of water.

There isn't much about rain that I don't like. I love the smell of it on the horizon. The drama of thunder in the distance and the possibility of something occurring that has simple purpose, relative unpredictability and the forceful power to envelope you, taunt you and allow you to survive and flourish within. I love the cool air that replaces the heat after a rain and the clean smell of dirt that reminds me of rainbows.
Of course, I was terrified of the rain at times. Most times, because some adult thought I should be. But . . . the grownups around me hadn't always shown the best judgment. I knew this even as a toddler so I didn't entirely trust them where the weather was concerned. Besides, I was the middle child which meant that I could pretty much do whatever I wanted and it went under the parental radar. Or, if my behavior was noticed for some odd reason, it never lasted long. For me, this meant that I had to be patient - and calculating. Eventually, I could carry on with whatever rejected activity that I liked, I simply had to wait until my parents we no longer paying attention to me enough to get in the way of my plans. My brother and sister are just beginning to understand just what a curse and a blessing the 'middle child' spot in the family provided me.

The reverse of this was that I (armed with the judgment and maturity of a four year old) made some mistakes. I got my teeth knocked out, I got lost and I put myself in dangerous situations - all because ignorance was truly bliss. Most times, I solved my problems on my own deciding not to involve my parents. Not that they ever offered to help, but instead chose to lecture me for hours when a simple, "I told you so" could take the place of all that  . . . rationalization. What they did say succinctly and directly was, "I'm disappointed in you." You can see why I kept to myself.

Outside, in the rain, I was almost always assured to be by myself - in peace. Nobody else wanted to be there sloshing in the gutter or challenging the rising current of the ditch. On one occasion, it rained so hard and so consistently that the neighborhood flooded. The streets were entirely blocked by water raining faster than the street drains could whisk away. This was one of only two times that I can remember any of the other neighborhood kids coming out to play in the rain as well. The other was when Jeff McGrath almost died because he was playing in the ditch during a rainstorm.
I never heard or don't remember how he slipped and fell into the current, but he did. The ditch, which was normally entirely docile four inches deep had transformed into a tumultuous 60 inches of rolling, debris-laden, muddy muck that was moving faster than it ever had as it raced toward "the tunnel".
The tunnel was a pair of 50-yard long cement tunnels that on almost every other day, a kid could easily walk through it. The ditch offered every kid a covert way to disappear from the newer section of the neighborhood and miraculously reappear in the older section two streets over. About half way through, each tunnel broke off into a much smaller tunnel that kids had to crouch to fit in. These were really intriguing because nobody knew where they ended up. There was literally no light at the end of either of these paths. Tempting.
Both ends of the main tunnel were flanked by mud easements, pseudo-shanty-style forts that neighborhood kids had erected in flood zones from whatever discarded material they could scavenge to escape oversight and scraggly trees which weren't worth any developers time or influence.

The McGraths were a large family with lots of kids all bearing tall frames, blond hair and "Kennedy-esque" faces along with genetically provided, enviable sports skills. They were handsome even when they were supposed to be awkward looking teenagers. All of them - even the girls. It wasn't normal. I stayed away from them.
Jeff was somewhere in the middle of that family. Who knows, maybe he was another middle child who went looking for adventure in the rain one day like I did. Whatever the reason he was near the ditch when it was at it's worst, he went into the water and through the tunnels. The ambulances came. His body was propelled through and came out the other side as the neighborhood parents gathered, watched and waited. The ambulances took him away. Later, my parents told me that he had survived. He was lucky.
From that day forward, the ditch - and the rain - took on a whole new set of characteristics. I loved them even more. Rain was definitely in control.