It’s raining. It’s pouring.

TUESDAY, JULY 6, 2010


It’s raining. It’s pouring.

Yesterday morning was an official bank and federal holiday. It fell the day after a real holiday, but one the American worker is not to be cheated out of just because this fourth fell on Sunday.

We decided to go kayaking even though it looked like it might rain. The weatherman assured us that it would. He was often wrong and I figured it had been a while since we had spent a day on the river. Why not give it a shot? What better time to go paddling than a day when the motorboats and hordes of college students on floats or in inner tubes would be sitting at home watching NASCAR reruns or the History Channel, doing anything instead of getting wet.

The radar images on my computer indicated that the storm was still offshore when we left the house early in the morning. It looked like the storm was making little progress getting onshore. Of course we arrived at the river moments before the convergence with the raindrops. It could have been worse but we were not going to melt. We decided to unload the boats and head down stream. It started raining immediately after we cleared the ramp and applied the sunscreen. It was not too hard so I was sure it would stop drizzling before long.

I remained hopeful that it would let up because the sky was much lighter to the south where the wind was coming from. We had the river to ourselves until the herd of kayakers came up river. Like us, they were getting drenched. We exchanged pleasantries and all agreed that it would soon stop.

There was a lot of wildlife around the shoreline, not one motorboat. There were blue herons, alligators, a male Prothonotary Warbler, anhingas, cormorants, turtles, woodpeckers and many other birds. We heard the sounds of the Creature From the Black Lagoon because we were just down river from where the movie was filmed. We did not hear a single kookaburra whose lament was heard because of creative silver screen sound editing. Several pileated woodpeckers, Woody’s southern cousins stayed busy. They drummed the hollow cypress trees and let go their plaintive when they could not find a bug or another male entered their territory.

The water that flowed down the river from the spring remained crystal clear. Small raindrops dimpled the surface of the smooth flowing current. With the water as perfect as it was we were hoping to see some manatees. They were a no show. I have a hard time imagining how sailors mistook these massive hippo colored mammals for mermaids. I think someone was hitting the grog a little too hard.

I knew the sunscreen had been wasted as the light mist liquid sunshine kept coming down increasing with intensity. I was not going to let it keep us from having fun but the novelty of paddling in the rain began wearing off. It did not look like it was going to stop. It didn’t.

We kept sponging the rain out of the kayaks. Our direction changed as we kept paddling... we headed back to the ramp.

We convinced ourselves we made the right decision but I kept speculating if it might have been better to go another day during the week when it was gorgeous sunny. We had one brief respite. It let up and the sun poked out briefly. I remembered my first sunshower when I was four and at my grandmother’s house. It started raining on her side of the street. It was not raining in the street or on the other side. My brother and I crossed and watched as it poured on my grandmother’s house. Not a drop was falling on us. That day we saw the rainbow. Yesterday we didn’t.


Into every life a little rain must fall. I thought I would take a nap after we got dried off at the house.


The old man is snoring.
© 07.06.2010 steven d philbrick SR+ DakotaDawg


POSTED BY SRPLUS AT 8:16 AM