\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2:17 a.m.; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sitting on my front porch with my laptop, watching the rain cascade over the eaves troughs and rain spill into the barrel we bought for harvesting rainfall. This rain, only one of dozens in the monsoons of July and August, could have filled millions of barrels.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0What I first thought was a roaring jet engine was really another of a series of rainfalls that awoke me and probably most of San Miguel County this week.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0So much moisture have we had to date that only recently did a state religious group almost take credit for having prayed too hard for moisture.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re considering sending a thanks-but-we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re-fine-for-now-type prayer this time.<\/p>\n
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Even though the loud storm interrupted my sleep, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thankful and hopeful that the Lord will smite us again with even more rain, then lots of snow, and then a sensible means for storing water.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0All my life, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve welcomed rain, even more than sunshine. As a child, long before we heard the Internet comment about “Home on the Range,” I used to wonder about the words to this popular song. What did Dr. Brewster M. Higley have in mind in Kansas in 1872 when he came up with the ditty? The Internet joke, by the way, simply states, “Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll show you a messy home.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0That aside, as a 6-year-old, I wondered about the syntax of the song and questioned, six decades ago, whether the “deer and the antelope play,” with each other or stick to their own kind.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But worse is the confusing, ambiguous choices of words in regard to the ratio of rain and sun, and the obvious dig at the rain.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The song ends with “and the skies are not cloudy all day.” Now that means that for the entire day, there are no clouds. Not one. But it could also mean that the skies are cloudy for parts of the day, but not the entire day.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Or else it means that perhaps somewhere else there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s constant cloudiness, but in this “home,” that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the case.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0To investigate this libeling of rain, I consulted my own rain man, my son Stan, who lived in Seattle in January, at the time when the city recorded 27 consecutive days of measurable rainfall, five days short of the record set in 1953.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I reached Stan at his home in Denmark through a computer program called Skype, which enables us to talk \u00e2\u20ac\u201d really talk, not text message \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to each other through our computers, for free.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I asked, “What kind of weather are you having in Copenhagen, Son?”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0“Well, Dad, it pains me to say it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been raining for several days. And you? And you never call me \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsun.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0“Strange that you should ask, but at least for now the City Council has relaxed watering restrictions. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking of renting Noah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ark, but your mom still carts out the dishwater, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve hooked up our washer to drain the graywater.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0“Sonny” then introduced me to a Web site which contains thousands of references to rain in songs, and before I brought it up, he said, “Ya know, rain sure gets a bad rap. When the Bible says, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIt rains on the just and the unjust alike,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 I guess they mean that, as the Bible also says, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcinto everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life some rain must fall.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right. But the second source was Longfellow, not the Good Book.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Look how frequently rain gets maligned:
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Riding with my three grandchildren, Arthur, Carly and Celina, we came across 17 whole drops of rain, which prompted a round of singing, “Rain, rain go away . . . ” Mili Vanilli sings “Blame it on the Rain,” in which, like many other singers, he realizes that “rain” rhymes with “pain,” and “sun” rhymes with “fun.” Already, the deck is stacked against rain.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Peter Criss “Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Stop the Rain,” and, as expected, throws in “but the pain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gonna stay.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Anita Cochran, in “Every Time It Rains,” claims she still feels “the shame” and deals “with the pain every time it rains.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0In “I See the Rain,” by Marmalade, he\/she croons “I must complain again, why does the rain let me down? Will you try to make it sunny in the morning?”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Many older songs and literary allusions portray rain as the villain:
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0“Every cloud has a silver lining. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s “Stormy Weather” since “me and my gal ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t together.” “You Are My Sunshine” continues to promulgate the anti-rain, reigning-sunshine sentiment, as does “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The main song in “The Wizard of Oz,” reassures us that “Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue.” Guardian, in “The Rain,” utters a discouraging word: “I feel pain and it looks like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna lose again” and asks, “Who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gonna stop the rain?”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0If it weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t for Gene Kelly, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in love and “Singing in the Rain,” there apparently wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be anyone on my side.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Would anybody in the usually parched Southwest ever dare compose a song depicting rain as the villain? Sure, rain sometimes reigns and spoils a few picnics and parades and it dampens People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Faires. But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rein in this temporary inconvenience and not denounce rain.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Without disturbing the rhyme or scansion, I propose a slight alteration that more fits the needs of this area, such as “You Are My Rainfall, My Only Rainfall” or “And the skies are not sunny all day.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0In addition to its being vilified, rain can also be unpredictable. On a trip to Madrid, Spain, with a class from Highlands, in 2002, some of us took a jet to other parts of the country, on Iberian Airlines.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The jets are like those in the states, except that the one we boarded had little windshield wipers on the inside of the cabin, at every window.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Are the little wipers there because of clumsy flight attendants who spill drinks? Is there a severe humidity problem inside the passenger area?
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Finally a fellow passenger explained something strange about “the Rain in Spain.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2:17 a.m.; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sitting on my front porch with my laptop, watching the rain cascade over the eaves troughs and rain spill into the barrel we bought for harvesting rainfall. This rain, only one of dozens in the monsoons of July and August, could have filled millions of barrels. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0What I first thought was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}