Rain, Rain, Go Away . . . But, Just For Now.

The Carpenters sang about it, Gene Kelly danced in it and as kids we recited a rhyme pleading with it to go away and come again some other day.

It's beginning to storm outside. Lightening followed by loud, rolling thunder has me thinking about similar days when I was young.

I still remember the first time that I realized rain could fall even when the sun was shining. I couldn't have been more than four-years-old. We were living in a red brick apartment on Confederate Court near Grant Park in Atlanta. I walked out the front door and stood beneath the porch cover with its black wrought-iron supports, while gripping my marbleized-plastic flintlock pistol and sporting a Davy Crockett coonskin cap. The sky was blue and sun shined brightly, but a quick dash into the nearby grass revealed the surprising truth . . . the Devil was beating his wife with a switch! That's what my mom told me. "When it rains while the sun is out," she said, "the Devil is beating his wife with a switch, and if you stick a needle into the ground you can hear it." I never tried. That Devil stuff always freaked me out as a kid.

Then there was the time after a real gully-washer that my dad took me into the backyard at our house on Beech Drive to catch worms. We found a nice, soggy patch of grass just beyond the back steps. He poured a bottle of vinegar over the lawn where we crouched and told me that the strong smelling liquid would force the slimy buggers to the surface. Then we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. It was getting close to dark when mom called us in for supper. The worms in our backyard had been spared to do what worms do another day.

My grandaddy Stuart was a carpenter by trade. He was a master with tools in his rough hands. The two best gifts that he ever made for me were a red soap box derby-style racer with the number 5 painted on the side, and a set of wood building blocks in a handmade wood tray. Our house sat beside a cement gully that was great fun on dry days, but was fast to fill with rushing water when the rains came. A young boy would have drowned in that gully one summer were it not for the quick action of our neighbor, Betty Dean. She was a hero that day and I have never forgotten.

Meanwhile, I was in my room overlooking that gully, having just witnesses the heroics of our neighbor. As I watched the water I wondered, "would my wooded blocks float like little boats on that rolling river?" I popped the screen on the window and began tossing squares and rectangles toward the flow. They did indeed float very well and within minutes were gone, except for the few triangles and arches that had fallen short. Mom wasn't happy and grandaddy Stuart never made replacements. Even after 50-years I am sometimes still saddened by the loss of those wooden blocks in such a silly way. But you know, kids do silly things.

There were the rained-out opening days of Little League, the soggy cancelled after-prom outing to Six Flags with Mallory Smith, and the hurricane-shortened trip to St. Augustine, Florida. We did make Marineland and the Alligator Farm before turning tail toward home.

I can remember ducking beneath the water while swimming at Glenwood Springs to keep from getting wet from raindrops . . . my logic was less developed then than now, though some may disagree. I can remember huddling under a tree with friends as a summer rain passed over head, and then shaking the lower branches to bring a second shower down on us all. And, I can remember walking home from Midway Elementary and smelling the fragrance of the rain floating in the air in advance of the storm.

As a grownup there are times when I see the rain as an inconvenience to my routine or a plan-buster, but then I think back to when the rain was such a thing of wonder and delight. Rain, rain go away, but, just for now . . . OK?