“A man is getting old w’en he walks around a puddle instead of through it.”
Today is already in the 80’s. The sun is in and out. Rain is likely tonight but after my concert. Nothing is moving in the stillness of the day. It is quiet.
When I was growing up, summer seemed to last forever. Every day was filled with fun, especially the rainy days. I loved playing outside in the rain. I’d walk in the gutters and kick up the water, the deeper the water the better. I’d ride my bike through the puddles and watch the water spray to each side, like a parting of the Red Sea moment. I’d get soak, but I didn’t care. The sun, after the rain, would dry my clothes.
In Ghana, the rainy season meant rain, if not every day then every couple of days. I had brought an umbrella, a travel umbrella, with me when I packed. I never used it. I loved watching the rain, and sometimes I’d sit outside under the metal awning covering my tiny concrete sort of porch outside my door. It was amazing, sitting in the rain without being in the rain. Where my fridge and kitchen table were was in a room with a screen, not a glass window. When it poured, the floor got soaked, but it was concrete so it didn’t matter. If I was in the market and the rain started, I’d just find a place to wait out the heaviest of the rain. When I went back to Ghana, I was in the market when the rain started. I stood under a sort of eave but was still getting wet. A woman in a shop near where I was standing invited me inside and gave me a chair. She was a seamstress. There was another women with her, and they spoke FraFra. I didn’t. I just kept smiling. On another visit, I sat outside under a thatch roof and watched the rain. I was surrounded by the rain but I didn’t get wet.
I still love the rain. Sometimes I sit under the umbrella on the deck and watch it rain.
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August 21, 2023 at 9:27 pm
Hi Kat,
On top of the very dry and hot weather, my neighbor left me a note that one of my sprinkler heads was missing and was shooting water into the air. Now we have two zones disabled. We will have to get a sprinkler system repair guy out here. I’m so tired of triple digit high temperature days, so I won’t mention the weather.
When I was a kid, the summer vacation went from Memorial Day through Labor Day and I dreaded going back to school. For much of my school career I was bored. I just could never get interested in subjects like diagraming sentences and multiplication tables. 🙁
The Autumn brought some of my least favorite activities. I hated having to keep my father awake in the synagogue during the High Holidays. Then, there was the State Fair. I wasn’t thrilled by cow dung and college football. The shortening days still make me depressed. Tonight the sun has already set. Hopefully, this year Autumn will be better.
August 21, 2023 at 9:57 pm
Hi Bob,
It was hot for here today and a bit humid. It will rain tonight and get down to 69°. Tomorrow will be around the same but will be cooler tomorrow night. This is usually our hottest month, but it had been in the 70’s, not the 80’s.
We didn’t have as long a summer vacation. We got out in June. The public schools had to have 180 days of school, while we didn’t have a specific number so we got out a bit earlier than the public schools. That hasn’t changed.
I liked school because I liked learning. Some things I thought I’d might never use, but I was too young to know which.
Fall is the best season here and lasts a long while, sometimes into November. I remember a Thanksgiving on the deck. The weather is perfect, and the crowds are far fewer though it is the season of the bus. They are tours with mostly older people. It is my favorite time of year!