Playing in the rain

[FlickerOfLight]

I grew up - well, my teen years, anyhow - about 20 miles south and west of where I live now. There was a lot more open country there than there is here. By "open" I mean unoccupied, no one living on it. My nearest neighbor was about half a mile away over a couple of ridges. That was a "close" neighbor. Most dwellings had a lot more space between them.

I'd get up around 7 am on many mornings and hit the hills, spend the entire day until sundown or a bit later out and about, roaming the woods, fields, and thickets, or wandering up or down the river. It wasn't unusual for me to be 5 or 6 miles away from the house on foot when a sudden storm would blow up. Didn't really have any choice but to play in the rain. Many was the time that I'd put my rifle on my shoulder for a lighting rod, and walk out ridges, daring the lightning to hit me. It never did. It got close some times, but never on target. I saw it hit an old weeping willow tree once, one that was around 300 years old, and blow it up into match sticks. Just that quick - BOOM! and when the smoke cleared, there was nothing there but a ragged stump and about an acre of busted willow laying all over the place.

It can be surmised that I got soaked clear to the bone on many of those occasions.

I've been out on nights so dark and stormy that I'd have to wait for the next lightning flash to be able to tell where my next step should go, to avoid falling over a cliff or a mountainside. I've seen the lightning hit the ground and "splash" - send runners of brilliant light out in all directions along the ground from the strike site.

I guess it goes without saying that I've never been afraid of lightning. It's been my friend more times than it's been my enemy.

When I was REAL little, I'd go sit and watch lightning storms out the window... until mom caught me and made me move away from the window. She always had a fear that lightning would somehow enter the insulating glass of a window just to seek me out and "get me".

But it never did.

Old timers here always said that if it rains when the sun shines, that means it's going to rain at the same time the next day. Sometimes that pans out, sometimes it doesn't. Never heard about the devil beating his wife at those times, though. That's a new one to me.

The old timers here also used to say that when you could see an actual ray of sunlight coming through the clouds, that was the sun "drawing up water" for more rain on down the road.

Something else they used to say was that when you saw particular trees "turning" their leaves to show their lighter undersides, that meant it was going to rain some time in the next 3 days. That one I've found to be pretty accurate.

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You sound just like my dad again. Lol

He grew up in west VA. His childhood stories sound a lot like yours.

He always said I had missed out not being able to romp around the mountains like that. Sounds like a good childhood. I wish I had had that freedom growing up. I wasn’t aloud to ride my bike more than a mile or two from the house. I'd get in serious trouble if I went too far. I had to stay close for the most part.


One of my cool "playing in the rain" stories.

I grew up near the ocean, so I grew up surfing. 

One day after school me and a buddy of mine hear about a swell that had moved in. But it was raining really really hard. We asked a couple more buddies if they were down with paddling out with us. No one wanted to go but Eric and I. It was iffy that things were going to line up for anything good. The report was a big swell, but all blown out chaos. A big washing machine. My buddy and I hadn't had a wave in a while so we were like f**k it, let's ride. 

We jet out to the beach, it's storming the whole way. 

We get to the beach which was a quick 15 minute drive. We see our first glimpse of what the waves were like, and it was a big sloppy mess out there. We were debating if it might be too rough to paddle out in. Or even worth it. We decided we needed our fix. So we dive in and make that long hard paddle in a 12ft swell that has zero line up, no peak, and just pop up waves everywhere. 


We make it out against one of the gnarliest currents I ever remember paddling against. We both try for a couple pop ups but no success. And it is pounding rain on us. We're getting tossed around like rag dolls. We were both getting so frustrated wanting just one wave. We have this moment we look at each other like, "this sucks."  

After a few more minutes the rain starts to ease up...

There was this moment where I was sitting there watching the waves smooth over. It went from chop city to glass waves in an instant. It was like bobbing up and down on these 12-15ft hills just rolling in. Him and I were the only two out there. I remember this as one of the most peaceful feelings I had ever had while surfing. We went from pure chaos to pure serenity. Not a white cap in sight. Just rolling glass as far as we could see. Nothing to catch, but man, what a sight. A Dark cloudy day, light drizzle now just bobbing up and down in this heaven of water, just me and my homie. We look at each other and smile. He's a good 25 yards from me.


Suddenly the rain stops....

The Sun peaks through the clouds....

And ladies and gentlemen that ocean started firing the biggest, cleanest, deepest barrels I had ever seen. It sounded like thunder as they crashed down. We didn't get waves like this ever. For me, this was a once in a lifetime chance. This was the unicorn of waves. 

And no one but him and I to gobble it all up. We were completely alone out there.

This lasted an hour or so. Then it eventually shifted back to crap again. But we had the best surf session we had ever had. We still remember this day.

We told our buds, "you shoulda been there. Double over head barrels."  They were like, yeahhhhhh rigggghhhht... 

The old fishing story no one ever believes. For surfers it's the "you shoulda been out here an hour ago. Or yesterday." In the surfing game you can hit it, or miss it, just that quick.


Best waves of my life, in one of the worst storms I had ever been out in.

Cheers

Ps. I love the lightning. I have always loved storms in general. I love a good bolt of lightning and that boom of thunder that lifts the whole house up as shakes the earth.

That's actually peaceful to me. Don't know why, but a good storm always soothed me.


Pps. It's storming now, still. Lightning crashing and thunder booming.