Playing in the rain

[FlickerOfLight]

As I sit here and write this it is a dreary rainy day. I can hear the pitter patter from my bedroom window as a cool breeze blows in and through the room, ever so gently. I am reminded of my childhood as I sit and smell the fresh rain in the air.

When I was a young lad, about 3 years old, I remember a rainy day like this one day at my granny's house. Me and my older sister, who is 5 at this time, are sitting on her open porch on one of her couches. Screened in porch that wrapped around the front of her house. There were couches and chairs, tables and lamps in this nice L shaped porch. We had a nice view of the garden and a couple of fig trees in the front yard. As me and my sister sit there with the thoughts of playing in the rain dancing about our heads our granny enters into the room. "You kids wanna go out there and play in that there rain, don't ya? My granny was a southern Georgia lady. She could farm and grow anything. We ate from her many gardens growing up. As soon as my sister and I heard this we jumped for joy and shouted at the same time, "Yes, granny...can we please?" She says with that ol crooked grin, "Well, I reckon. Yall dont be tellin your momma now." We laughed as we ran for the door. Screen door opens and me and my sister blast outside like two little rockets. We run and jump and turn cart wheels as we play our little hearts out. We wore ourselves out chasing each other and spinning in the rain as we fell dizzy to the ground. Splash.

We got so tired so quick we sat down on the porch steps in the rain. Granny opens the door and hands us both a bottled coke. "Thank you, granny," we both reply. "Ya'll already done out here?" With that same ol grin. "No way" we yelled as we set our cokes down for round 2 of playing in the rain.


This is one of my fondest memories of playing in the rain.

When I was a preteen, a buddy of mine's yard would flood up pretty good. About a good 10 yard stretch of standing water. We were lil surfer boys so we would take our skim boards and skim across that water at break neck speeds as we spun ourselves on those boards. We had a blast.


I have always loved rainy days. They always feel so peaceful.

I was standing outside in the rain the other day. I had stepped out on my back porch and just let the rain fall on me for a while. It reminded me of being a kid and playing in the rain.

Thanks, RN.

Got any good playing in the rain stories?

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

You are cleaning out the cobwebs in this dusty old memory of mine.

Anyone remember when it rained while the sun was shining, the old folk saying it meant the devil was beating his wife?

They said if you put a stick in the ground, bend over and listen, you could hear her crying.

If the old folks shared this with you when you were a child. Did any of you hear her crying?

[Infolurker]

I do like the sound of gentle rain on a humid day (especially in a .mil canvas tent). Puts me right to sleep.

[FlickerOfLight]

You are cleaning out the cobwebs in this dusty old memory of mine.

Anyone remember when it rained while the sun was shining, the old folk saying it meant the devil was beating his wife?

They said if you put a stick in the ground, bend over and listen, you could hear her crying.

If the old folks shared this with you when you were a child. Did any of you hear her crying?

I was grinning from ear to ear. Granny used to tell us that about rainy sunny days. This was one of them. Lol

I had never heard about the stick and hearing her until now.

---

I do like the sound of gentle rain on a humid day (especially in a .mil canvas tent). Puts me right to sleep.

I have a metal roof on my front porch. I love laying out on my chase lounge and napping to the sound of the rain hitting that metal roof.

A tent is cool too, no doubt.

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

You are cleaning out the cobwebs in this dusty old memory of mine.

Anyone remember when it rained while the sun was shining, the old folk saying it meant the devil was beating his wife?

They said if you put a stick in the ground, bend over and listen, you could hear her crying.

If the old folks shared this with you when you were a child. Did any of you hear her crying?

I was grinning from ear to ear. Granny used to tell us that about rainy sunny days. This was one of them. Lol

I had never heard about the stick and hearing her until now.

---

I do like the sound of gentle rain on a humid day (especially in a .mil canvas tent). Puts me right to sleep.

I have a metal roof on my front porch. I love laying out on my chase lounge and napping to the sound of the rain hitting that metal roof.

A tent is cool too, no doubt.

It was just the old folks way to punk the kids.

The kids out in the rain, listening to a stick, with their butts in the air, getting their butts wet.

[Ninurta]

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.

.

[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.

.

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.

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

You guys made me look about the devil beating his wife. I was starting think I had remembered it wrong.

"The devil is beating his wife” is a Southern meteorological expression that refers to rain falling while it's sunny. The phrase may have originated in the south and may combine the devil's hell fire (the sun's rays) and his wife's tears (the rain). The first known example of the phrase is from 1703 and is quoted as "as the French say". In 1738, Jonathan Swift expanded the phrase to "The devil was beating his wife behind the door with a shoulder of mutton". 

The phrase is most popular in the southern United States, but is used in other parts of the world. In the Southern United States, a sunshower is said to occur when "the devil is beating his wife". A regional variation from Tennessee is "the devil is kissing his wife".
Some say the phrase is used by older people from the South and may refer to the devil beating his wife with a walking stick because he's angry God created a beautiful day.

I found out it is called a Sun shower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshower

[Ninurta]

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.

There's good reason for that. My Dear Old Dad hailed from West Virginia, too. An area in the northwest quadrant of central WV, usually known as "The West Fork", Being the west fork of the Little Kanawha River. I spent a good part of my youth thrashing around the woods there with my cousins, too. My Dear Old Dad is buried on top of a ridge there, not far from the farm he grew up on.

My son lives in WV now, but way east, in the eastern panhandle, almost in Virginia.

I grew up in Russell County, VA, a few miles out from a town called Lebanon. I lived in what was called "The Corner Settlement", or just "The Corner", at the foot of River Mountain, which loomed 1000 feet above my front porch - I lived at 2200 feet, and the mountain top was at 3208 feet and roughly 1500 to 2000 yards away horizontally. This is in the southwestern part of Virginia, where VA, WV, TN, and KY all meet. That little tail of Virginia, the "ass-end" of VA, or just "the part of VA that Richmond has forgotten about".

I grew up around 3 or 3 1/2 miles from Cedar Creek, and maybe 3/4 of a mile from the Clinch River. There's a state park there now where Cedar Creek empties into the Clinch, but there was no park back then - it was just wilderness where you could do as you damn pleased and didn't have to worry or fret over picking some endangered plant or catching a fish for supper.

The last time I went to Cedar Creek, a game warden named Harry Street ran my ass out for carrying my .22. So I never went back. If my gun ain't welcome there, then neither am I. I've stomped these woods enough to know that some times, a fella is going to want a gun in them, because that's a lot more discouraging to something desiring to eat you than a sharp glare and a stern reprimand is.

The last time I went to "The Channels", on top of Clinch Mountain, I shot a rabbit for supper while my buddy was building the fire to cook it, and we ate supper in the shadow of the fire tower. That was 42 years ago, and that buddy has since moved on the the Great Beyond.

There's a state park at "The Channels" now, too, with a bunch of dumbassed rules and regulations. Wasn't one there when I was growing up, just an old fire watch tower, and we could go up there and do as we pleased, too. Now I can't tramp those grounds any more, for fear of pissing off some bureaucrat or crossing a rule that ought not to exist in the first place. It's a shame they'd spoil the natural value and beauty of places like that. Ain't nobody went up there back then that wasn't half billy goat, because the last 5 miles or so had to be on foot along a steep and switch-backed trail, and most folks weren't up to it. Now they have a road so folks can get to the park and do nothing while they are there unless they want to break a park rule..

I reckon that's "progress".

.

[FlickerOfLight]

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.

There's good reason for that. My Dear Old Dad hailed from West Virginia, too. An area in the northwest quadrant of central WV, usually known as "The West Fork", Being the west fork of the Little Kanawha River. I spent a good part of my youth thrashing around the woods there with my cousins, too. My Dear Old Dad is buried on top of a ridge there, not far from the farm he grew up on.

My son lives in WV now, but way east, in the eastern panhandle, almost in Virginia.

I grew up in Russell County, VA, a few miles out from a town called Lebanon. I lived in what was called "The Corner Settlement", or just "The Corner", at the foot of River Mountain, which loomed 1000 feet above my front porch - I lived at 2200 feet, and the mountain top was at 3208 feet and roughly 1500 to 2000 yards away horizontally. This is in the southwestern part of Virginia, where VA, WV, TN, and KY all meet. That little tail of Virginia, the "ass-end" of VA, or just "the part of VA that Richmond has forgotten about".

I grew up around 3 or 3 1/2 miles from Cedar Creek, and maybe 3/4 of a mile from the Clinch River. There's a state park there now where Cedar Creek empties into the Clinch, but there was no park back then - it was just wilderness where you could do as you damn pleased and didn't have to worry or fret over picking some endangered plant or catching a fish for supper.

The last time I went to Cedar Creek, a game warden named Harry Street ran my ass out for carrying my .22. So I never went back. If my gun ain't welcome there, then neither am I. I've stomped these woods enough to know that some times, a fella is going to want a gun in them, because that's a lot more discouraging to something desiring to eat you than a sharp glare and a stern reprimand is.

The last time I went to "The Channels", on top of Clinch Mountain, I shot a rabbit for supper while my buddy was building the fire to cook it, and we ate supper in the shadow of the fire tower. That was 42 years ago, and that buddy has since moved on the the Great Beyond.

There's a state park at "The Channels" now, too, with a bunch of dumbassed rules and regulations. Wasn't one there when I was growing up, just an old fire watch tower, and we could go up there and do as we pleased, too. Now I can't tramp those grounds any more, for fear of pissing off some bureaucrat or crossing a rule that ought not to exist in the first place. It's a shame they'd spoil the natural value and beauty of places like that. Ain't nobody went up there back then that wasn't half billy goat, because the last 5 miles or so had to be on foot along a steep and switch-backed trail, and most folks weren't up to it. Now they have a road so folks can get to the park and do nothing while they are there unless they want to break a park rule..

I reckon that's "progress".

.

You reminding me of my father was a good thing. He's been gone for 6 years now. Seeing something (anything) that reminds me of him is a comfort to me.


Sounds awesome. 
I played in the ocean or any body of water that was around. Plus we lived in the suburbs growing up. Not too much to explore, but we did wonder off the beaten path and find little adventures. 

I didn't see a mountain until I was about 14. We took a family vacation up to the smokey mountains in TN. Pigeon forge and Gatlinburg were our hang out spots, but we decided to take a trip up to Clingmans dome, which is the highest point of that area. Somewhere in NC. Anyways, we had this plan to take a bucket of chicken to the top of that mountain peak and have a picnic of fried chicken up there.

We load up, get our bucket of chicken and start to make the drive up.

Halfway up this mountain it starts to storm. It stormed so bad the road leading up to the dome was closed.

My dad lost it... haha

He bitched and cussed and slammed his fist over and over. Dude was pissed. 

We were terrified... 

We rode down that mountain in total silence smelling that infamous bucket of chicken.

We went on 3 more family vacations like this. up to those mountains. Each time with a bucket of chicken for a picnic on the top of that mountain. 

We tried 3 times.

It rained every single time.

We never had our picnic of fried chicken on that mountain.  But we still had some great memories.



Before I die.......I will get a bucket of chicken to the top of Clingmans dome. I've already been planning it. He bought a drop top convertible Corvette, that I still have. I plan on getting some fried chicken and taking a cruise in his Corvette through those mountains and up to that dome. I'm hoping and planning for sometime this summer when its nice enough to drop that the top and ride those mountains.


Something I've been wanting to do in his honor.