And the Rain Keeps Falling

         Has it been raining forever or does it just seem that way? Maybe if it would rain faster it would get over with sooner but now it's a steady drizzle slow and settled in for the day.

         Time was there was plenty to do on a rainy day. Back then rainy days called for imagination and creativity finding things for housebound children to do. But they aren't housebound any more; they don't even live here.

         Time was I still had to go to work rain or shine but I don't work any more. I'm retired. Don't get me wrong I like being retired. I looked forward to it for a long time. To getting my pension and my Social Security and having all this free time. I don't even mind being what some people think of as old. And even being alone doesn't bother me all that much.

         It's the rain. April showers bring May flowers and as we all know from school, Mayflowers bring pilgrims.

         There's TV but the first thing I learned when I retired is there is nothing on in the daytime. Unless you want to watch people fight and air the dirtiest of linens for all to see. Unless you like old movies and sitcom reruns. The pickings are skinny. All this amazing technology and it comes down to this. Brady Bunch reruns. Forget TV, I don't know why I even give it house room.

         My computer. There's more there. My computer is fun if I only knew how to use it. It intimidates me. It has me buffaloed and knows it. Don't tell me that thing doesn't know it! This contraption which is perfectly understood by six-year-olds is a mystery to me. It plays cards with me and plays scrabble with me. All this technology has come down to this, It plays games with me. By some unimaginable magic the letters I type on the keyboard appear on a screen. How does it do that? Just owning a thing like this a hundred and fifty years ago would have got me burned at the stake.

         And the rain goes on and on and on. All this technology and still nobody can do anything about the weather. The weather has the final say. It rains out baseball games, destroys cities, and blows away our stuff. And we can't do a thing about it. Some kinds of weather we have names for. Tornado, cyclone, hurricane, monsoon. But this doesn't have a name, it is just rain. Drip, drip drip. A cosmic Chinese water torture.

         We need the rain. It makes things grow. The clouds have silver linings. Behind the clouds the sun is shining. Rain, rain, go away, all the children want to play.

         And the rain goes on. All day all night.

         Drip, drip, drip.